Web Design - the Art and the Technology

A Web Hosting Article Contributed by Sonal Raje

The Two Pillars of a Good Web Design

Web Design is usually planned by a group of people who contribute to the content, planning, designing and programming. When all these functions are handled by the experts in the respective fields, you can have a site that has a powerful visual impact and efficient functioning. A good Web Design has the two elements of Art and Technology in perfect co-ordination with each other.

The Art of Web Design

When a website is developed by a purely technical approach, relying on efficient scripting, web technologies and browser plugins, you can have a site that is efficient in functionality and purpose. But to add to the visual appeal of the interface, a good layout and high impact graphics are required. A well designed web page is the first impression that the viewer gets and which creates an interest in the content of the website.

As in print advertising, certain design principles can be followed for the Web Design, keeping in mind the difference in the media. A Web Design is different than designing for other media such as print, due to the very nature of the functioning of the internet. The data from the files of the website is transferred digitally through the host server and can be thus viewed on the internet by viewers across the globe.

While working on the Web Design, the designer has to be aware of both the scope as well as the limitations of data transfer on the internet.

The viewer sees the website on his browser, therefore it is essential that the Web design has elements that are supported on all the browsers. If the viewer has used the option of turning off the images, the entire effort of creating a visual appeal through the use of graphics is lost on that particular viewer. The download time of the Website is increased considerably with the use of graphics and animation. So it is important to prepare your images for the web by reducing the file size.

Heavy animations take time to load and the viewer is kept waiting for a considerable time. He may lose interest in viewing the site altogether. Thus download time has to be taken into consideration while working on the Web Design.

A web browser supports a limited number of web safe colors. Even this palette of 256 colors may not be shared by all the browsers. Thus it is advisable for the designer working on the Web Design to stay limited to the 216 color palette that is shared by all the browsers.Otherwise the browser will display colors approximately close to the actual colors used in the Web Design. This is known as dithering.

A Good Web Design is Thus Created with a Perfect Balance of Art and Technology

We have seen how the art of Web Design has to be supported by a knowledge of web technology. It can be a co-ordinated group effort by many individuals working on the Website. From developing the content, planning the layout, navigation and functionality, these individuals have to work on the Web Design keeping in mind how to get the site across to the viewers across the globe who would be using different browsers and web technologies.