Web design is a discipline within the design field of technology and is concerned primarily with the design of websites and web pages. It is a combination of technical skills and creative vision and hence can be considered one of the most promising of design fields.
The increased need for web design is directly attributed to the demand for Internet advertising and interactive media. With online advertising taking a huge chunk of the advertising and marketing strategies and budgets of every business or corporation, web design is here to stay. Global digital marketing authorities estimate that annual online marketing and advertising costs are touching $40 billion.
Web design includes web-specific design factors such as the ‘look and feel’ of websites, accessibility, usability, architecture, front-end and back-end tools, image compression, screen resolution and much more. It has to be effective to support a website’s features in conjunction with the specific technologies supporting that particular website for optimal benefits and results.
Being a specialized function within the broader role of Information Technology, and because it plays an important role in web development, the sky is the limit for web design. Besides creating the design for websites using software programming codes, computer graphics and images etc., a completely integrated design has to ensure that ‘User Interface’ (UI) and the navigation around a website are enabled in such a manner that is appealing, interesting and keeps a visitor to the website wanting to know more.
What a design of a website involves
Today, all businesses, big and small rely greatly on compelling and impacting web designs to do a range of functions – communicating a message, advertising a brand or product, enhance visibility of company operations, selling goods and services and networking with clients, employees and business associates. A successful web design is one that helps companies achieve their business goals with calculated use of design tools, imaging and messaging techniques, art fundamentals such as form and color, and interactive media features like animation clips, videos, e-commerce payment systems, and much more.
Web design calls for people with high proficiency in technology and knowledge and skill of visual designing features. However, these skills have to be updated on a continual basis to keep abreast of evolving technologies and how they impact the Internet and web users.
A successful design of a website determines whether browsers and visitors spend more time on a site or leave after a cursory visit. It also determines whether visitors do the functions that a company or business expects them to do while on the website.
Hence, the success of a good web design is measured by many factors:
• If a company’s website intends to generate e-commerce, the ultimate sales results and revenues will indicate a measure of the web design’s success.
• If the website’s main revenues accrue from advertising and subscriptions, then success can be measured by the number of click-throughs and new subscribers generated.
• Where a website’s goal is to increase visibility and brand value of products and services the results may be hard to define but a perception of success can be determined by the number of visitors to a webpage.
Web design is known as the digital marketing design as it helps a host of marketing principles like branding, merchandising and sales.
