The term web design refers to the way content, which is usually hypermedia or hypertext, is transported through the World Wide Web to end users by way of a web browser. The aim of web design is to develop a website that resides on servers or web servers. A website may be interactive and have sounds, images, text, and additional content.
Web design encompasses a website’s structure which includes the conceptual design with branding, the pages or the layout, and the information architecture which are naming conventions and navigation schemes. The content of a web design includes elements such as forms, text, images (Portable Network Graphics, JPEGs, GIFs) and video that is placed on the page by using XML/XHTML/HTML tags. Older browsers often need plug-ins such as Java, QuickTime, Adobe Flash and run-time environment in order to display media that is implanted into a web page by the use of XHTML/HTML tags.
Web pages are usually classified as dynamic or static. Dynamic pages alter their appearance and/or content dependant upon the end users changes or interaction/input in the computer environment. On the client side, content can be altered by using scripting languages that are client side (Action script, Jscript, JavaScript, etc.) in order for elements called DOM to be changed. Static pages do not alter layout and content with each request unless a human (programmer/web master) updates the page manually. An example of static content is an HTML page.
The procedure of designing multimedia, web applications, websites, or web pages for the Internet may encompass a series of functions such as typography, marketing, authoring, information architecture, graphic design, interaction design, corporate identity, animation, photography and more. The following are code references:
- XML, HTML-Markup languages
- XSL, CSS-Style sheet languages
- ASP, PHP-Server side scripting