Creating Modern Websites

Web design encompasses many different skills and disciplines in the production and maintenance of websites.

Often many individuals will work in teams covering different aspects of the design process, although some designers will cover them all. Web design partially overlaps web engineering in the broader scope of web development.

What is Web Design?

User experience is about how a user interacts with, and experiences, a particular product, system or service. As a UX designer, you should consider the Why, What and How of product use.

The Why involves the users’ motivations for adopting a product, whether they relate to a task they wish to perform with it or to values and views which users associate with the ownership and use of the product.

Front-end Development

The What addresses the things people can do with a product—its functionality. Finally, the How relates to the design of functionality in an accessible and aesthetically pleasant way. UX designers start with the Why before determining the What and then, finally, the How in order to create products that users can form meaningful experiences with. In software designs, you will need to ensure the product’s “substance” comes through an existing device and offers a seamless, fluid experience.

As a UX designer, you should consider the Why, What and How of product use.

Web designers are expected to have an awareness of usability and if their role involves creating markup then they are also expected to be up to date with web accessibility guidelines.

Design Systems

A Design System is a set of interconnected patterns and shared practices coherently organized to aid in digital product design and development of products such as apps or websites.

Process

There are two primary jobs involved in creating a website: the web designer and web developer, who often work closely together on a website. The web designers are responsible for the visual aspect, which includes the layout, coloring and typography of a web page.

• User experience research
• Visual design and illustration
• Programming and coding

Web designers will also have a working knowledge of markup languages such as HTML and CSS, although the extent of their knowledge will differ from one web designer to another. Particularly in smaller organizations, one person will need the necessary skills for designing and programming the full web page, while larger organizations may have a web designer responsible for the visual aspect alone.