Editing Web design (section)

== Skills and techniques ==

=== Marketing and communication design ===
Marketing and communication design on a website may identify what works for its target market. This can be an age group or particular strand of culture; thus the designer may understand the trends of its audience. Designers may also understand the type of website they are designing, meaning, for example, that [[business-to-business]] (B2B) website design considerations might differ greatly from a consumer-targeted website such as a retail or entertainment website. Careful consideration might be made to ensure that the aesthetics or overall design of a site do not clash with the clarity and accuracy of the content or the ease of [[web navigation]],<ref>{{cite journal|last=THORLACIUS|first=LISBETH|title=The Role of Aesthetics in Web Design|journal=Nordicom Review|year=2007|volume=28|issue=28|pages=63–76|doi=10.1515/nor-2017-0201|s2cid=146649056|doi-access=free}}</ref> especially on a B2B website. Designers may also consider the reputation of the owner or business the site is representing to make sure they are portrayed favorably. Web designers normally oversee the development of sites with respect to their functioning, often initiating changes as business needs require. They may change elements including  text, photos, graphics, and layout. Before beginning work on a website, web designers normally set an appointment with their clients to discuss layout, colour, graphics, and design. Web designers spend the majority of their time designing sites and ensuring their satisfactory performance. They typically engage in testing and communication with other designers about marketing issues and the layout and composition of websites.<ref>{{Cite web |title=What is a Web Designer? (2022 Guide) |url=https://brainstation.io/career-guides/what-is-a-web-designer |access-date=2022-10-28 |website=BrainStation® |language=en-US}}</ref>

=== User experience design and interactive design ===
User understanding of the content of a website often depends on user understanding of how the website works. This is part of the [[user experience design]]. User experience is related to layout, clear instructions, and labeling on a website. How well a user understands how they can interact on a site may also depend on the [[interactive design]] of the site. If a user perceives the usefulness of the website, they are more likely to continue using it. Users who are skilled and well versed in website use may find a more distinctive, yet less intuitive or less [[usability|user-friendly]] website interface useful nonetheless. However, users with less experience are less likely to see the advantages or usefulness of a less intuitive website interface. This drives the trend for a more universal user experience and ease of access to accommodate as many users as possible regardless of user skill.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Castañeda|first1=J.A Francisco |last2=Muñoz-Leiva|first2=Teodoro Luque|title=Web Acceptance Model (WAM): Moderating effects of user experience|journal=Information & Management |year=2007 |volume=44 |issue=4 |pages=384–396|doi=10.1016/j.im.2007.02.003}}</ref>  Much of the user experience design and interactive design are considered in the [[user interface design]].

Advanced interactive functions may require [[plug-in (computing)|plug-ins]] if not advanced coding language skills. Choosing whether or not to use interactivity that requires plug-ins is a critical decision in user experience design. If the plug-in doesn't come pre-installed with most browsers, there's a risk that the user will have neither the know-how nor the patience to install a plug-in just to access the content. If the function requires advanced coding language skills, it may be too costly in either time or money to code compared to the amount of enhancement the function will add to the user experience. There's also a risk that advanced interactivity may be incompatible with older browsers or hardware configurations. Publishing a function that doesn't work reliably is potentially worse for the user experience than making no attempt. It depends on the target audience if it's likely to be needed or worth any risks.

=== Progressive enhancement ===
[[File:Progressive enhancement web design pyramid (HTML, CSS, JS).svg|thumb|The order of progressive enhancement]]
{{main article|Progressive enhancement}}
'''Progressive enhancement''' is a strategy in web design that puts emphasis on [[web content]] first, allowing [[Universal design|everyone to access]] the basic content and functionality of a web page, whilst [[user (computing)|users]] with additional browser features or faster Internet access receive the enhanced version instead.

In practice, this means serving content through [[HTML]] and applying styling and animation through [[CSS]] to the technically possible extent, then applying further enhancements through [[JavaScript]]. Pages' text is loaded immediately through the HTML source code rather than having to wait for JavaScript to initiate and load the content subsequently, which allows content to be readable with minimum loading time and bandwidth, and through [[text-based browser]]s, and maximizes [[backwards compatibility]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Building a resilient frontend using progressive enhancement |url=https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/technology/using-progressive-enhancement |website=GOV.UK |access-date=27 October 2021 |language=en}}</ref>

As an example, [[MediaWiki]]-based sites including Wikipedia use progressive enhancement, as they remain usable while JavaScript and even CSS is deactivated, as pages' content is included in the page's HTML source code, whereas counter-example [[Everipedia]] relies on JavaScript to load pages' content subsequently; a blank page appears with JavaScript deactivated.

=== Page layout ===
Part of the user interface design is affected by the quality of the [[page layout]].  For example, a designer may consider whether the site's page layout should remain consistent on different pages when designing the layout.  Page pixel width may also be considered vital for aligning objects in the layout design. The most popular fixed-width websites generally have the same set width to match the current most popular browser window, at the current most popular screen resolution, on the current most popular monitor size. Most pages are also center-aligned for concerns of [[aesthetics]] on larger screens.

'''Fluid layouts''' increased in popularity around 2000 to allow the browser to make user-specific layout adjustments to fluid layouts based on the details of the reader's screen (window size, font size relative to window, etc.). They grew as an alternative to HTML-table-based layouts and [[Grid (page layout)|grid-based design]] in both page layout design principles and in coding technique but were very slow to be adopted.<ref group="note" ><code>&lt;table&gt;</code>-based markup and [[spacer .GIF]] images</ref> This was due to considerations of [[Screen reader|screen reading devices]] and varying windows sizes which designers have no control over. Accordingly, a design may be broken down into units (sidebars, content blocks, [[Web banner|embedded advertising]] areas, navigation areas) that are sent to the browser and which will be fitted into the display window by the browser, as best it can. Although such a display may often change the relative position of major content units, sidebars may be displaced below [[body text]] rather than to the side of it. This is a more flexible display than a hard-coded grid-based layout that doesn't fit the device window. In particular, the relative position of content blocks may change while leaving the content within the block unaffected. This also minimizes the user's need to horizontally scroll the page.

[[Responsive web design]] is a newer approach, based on CSS3, and a deeper level of per-device specification within the page's style sheet through an enhanced use of the CSS <code>@media</code> rule. In March 2018 Google announced they would be rolling out mobile-first indexing.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2018/03/rolling-out-mobile-first-indexing.html|title=Rolling out mobile-first indexing|work=Official Google Webmaster Central Blog|access-date=2018-06-09|language=en-US}}</ref> Sites using responsive design are well placed to ensure they meet this new approach.

===Typography===
{{Main|typography}}
Web designers may choose to limit the variety of website typefaces to only a few which are of a similar style, instead of using a wide range of [[typeface]]s or [[Typeface#Style of typefaces|type styles]]. Most browsers recognize a specific number of safe fonts, which designers mainly use in order to avoid complications.

Font downloading was later included in the CSS3 fonts module and has since been implemented in Safari 3.1, [[Opera 10]], and [[Mozilla Firefox 3.5]]. This has subsequently increased interest in [[web typography]], as well as the usage of font downloading.

Most site layouts incorporate negative space to break the text up into paragraphs and also avoid center-aligned text.<ref>{{cite web|last=Stone|first=John|title=20 Do's and Don'ts of Effective Web Typography|url=http://webdesignledger.com/tips/20-dos-and-donts-of-effective-web-typography|access-date=2012-03-19|date=2009-11-16}}</ref>

===Motion graphics===
The page layout and user interface may also be affected by the use of motion graphics. The choice of whether or not to use motion graphics may depend on the target market for the website. Motion graphics may be expected or at least better received with an entertainment-oriented website. However, a website target audience with a more serious or formal interest (such as business, community, or government) might find animations unnecessary and distracting if only for entertainment or decoration purposes. This doesn't mean that more serious content couldn't be enhanced with animated or video presentations that is relevant to the content. In either case, [[motion graphic design]] may make the difference between more effective visuals or distracting visuals.

Motion graphics that are not initiated by the site visitor can produce accessibility issues. The World Wide Web consortium accessibility standards require that site visitors be able to disable the animations.<ref>[http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/time-limits-pause.html World Wide Web Consortium: Understanding Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2.2: Pause, Stop, Hide]</ref>

=== Quality of code ===
Website designers may consider it to be good practice to conform to standards. This is usually done via a description specifying what the element is doing. Failure to conform to standards may not make a website unusable or error-prone, but standards can relate to the correct layout of pages for readability as well as making sure coded elements are closed appropriately. This includes errors in code, a more organized layout for code, and making sure IDs and classes are identified properly. Poorly coded pages are sometimes colloquially called [[tag soup]]. [[W3C Markup Validation Service|Validating via W3C]]<ref name="W3C_validator" /> can only be done when a correct DOCTYPE declaration is made, which is used to highlight errors in code. The system identifies the errors and areas that do not conform to web design standards. This information can then be corrected by the user.<ref>{{cite web|last=W3C QA|title=My Web site is standard! And yours?|url=http://www.w3.org/QA/2002/04/Web-Quality|access-date=2012-03-21}}</ref>

=== Generated content ===
There are two ways websites are generated: statically or dynamically.

==== Static websites ====
{{Main|Static web page}}
A static website stores a unique file for every page of a static website. Each time that page is requested, the same content is returned. This content is created once, during the design of the website. It is usually manually authored, although some sites use an automated creation process, similar to a dynamic website, whose results are stored long-term as completed pages. These automatically created static sites became more popular around 2015, with generators such as [[Jekyll (software)|Jekyll]] and [[Adobe Muse]].<ref>{{Cite web
  | last = Christensen| first = Mathias Biilmann
  | title = Static Website Generators Reviewed: Jekyll, Middleman, Roots, Hugo
  | website= Smashing Magazine| access-date = 2016-10-26| date = 2015-11-16
  |url=https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2015/11/static-website-generators-jekyll-middleman-roots-hugo-review/
}}</ref>

The benefits of a static website are that they were simpler to host, as their server only needed to serve static content, not execute server-side scripts. This required less server administration and had less chance of exposing security holes. They could also serve pages more quickly, on low-cost server hardware. This advantage became less important as cheap web hosting expanded to also offer dynamic features, and [[virtual machine|virtual server]]s offered high performance for short intervals at low cost.

Almost all websites have some static content, as supporting assets such as images and style sheets are usually static, even on a website with highly dynamic pages.

==== Dynamic websites ====
{{Main|Dynamic web page}}
Dynamic websites are generated on the fly and use server-side technology to generate web pages. They typically extract their content from one or more back-end databases: some are database queries across a relational database to query a catalog or to summarise numeric information, and others may use a [[document database]] such as [[MongoDB]] or [[NoSQL]] to store larger units of content, such as blog posts or wiki articles.

In the design process, dynamic pages are often mocked-up or [[website wireframe|wireframe]]d using static pages. The skillset needed to develop dynamic web pages is much broader than for a static page, involving server-side and database coding as well as client-side interface design. Even medium-sized dynamic projects are thus almost always a team effort.

When dynamic web pages first developed, they were typically coded directly in languages such as [[Perl]], [[PHP]] or [[Active Server Pages|ASP]]. Some of these, notably PHP and ASP, used a 'template' approach where a server-side page resembled the structure of the completed client-side page, and data was inserted into places defined by 'tags'. This was a quicker means of development than coding in a purely procedural coding language such as Perl.

Both of these approaches have now been supplanted for many websites by higher-level application-focused tools such as [[content management system]]s.  These build on top of general-purpose coding platforms and assume that a website exists to offer content according to one of several well-recognised models, such as a time-sequenced blog, a thematic magazine or news site, a wiki, or a user forum. These tools make the implementation of such a site very easy, and a purely organizational and design-based task, without requiring any coding.

Editing the content itself (as well as the template page) can be done both by means of the site itself and with the use of third-party software. The ability to edit all pages is provided only to a specific category of users (for example, administrators, or registered users). In some cases, anonymous users are allowed to edit certain web content, which is less frequent (for example, on forums – adding messages). An example of a site with an anonymous change is Wikipedia.