Web designing and Graphic designing tools

Tools of the Trade

Web graphic designers tend to work in office settings, so they should be comfortable using standard office software and equipment in addition to the following:

• Image editing software (Adobe Photoshop)
• Programming software (Typescript, Atom.io)
• Version control (Jira, Git)

Web Graphic Designer Education and Training

Web graphic designers tend to have at least a bachelor’s degree in a related field, which can include web design. Graphic design experience, whether working for a creative agency or within a larger organization’s design department, is also very helpful for increasing job prospects. Because web designers primarily work on the front end of websites, they should be familiar with coding elements like HTML and CSS. Familiarity with JavaScript is also very helpful, and many companies prefer to hire web graphic designers who are familiar with all three of these technologies.

Web Graphic Designer Salary and Outlook

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), web designers earn a median annual

 salary of $67,990. While this role also includes web designers who work with

 the nongraphical elements of a website, the changing nature of the web

 graphic designer’s role means they need to work with code elements like HTML

 and CSS rather than strictly using graphic design software. The highest-paid 10 percent 

of web designers earn more than $122,320 per year, while the lowest-paid 10 percent earn

 less than $36,830.

The BLS expects employment for web designers to grow at a faster-than-average pace of 15

 percent by 2026, compared to the 4 percent growth projected for graphic designers as a whole.

Helpful Resources

We searched the web and found many resources if you’d like to learn more

 about working as a web graphic designer:

"The Top 10 Principles of Effective Web Design" –

 read this blog post to gain an understanding of web design and development

 and how a page’s elements work together to balance utility and presentation

The principles of Beautiful Web Design: Designing Great Web sites Is not Rocket scienc!  – 

this book explores how many elements of web graphic design, from color to layout,

 determine how a user experiences a website

"Web Design Elements: Examples and Best Practices"  –

 this blog post explores a number of elements that go into web design and discusses how to create

 elements that look good while providing a high level of functionality

Learning Web Design: A Beginner's Guide to HTML,  CSS,  JavaScript, and Graphics –

 read this book to learn about the core technologies behind web design and development

 on computers and mobile devices

Web Graphic Designer Resume Help

Explore these related job titles from our database of hundreds of thousands of expert-approved

 resume samples: 

Web Graphic Designer

Motion Graphic Designer

Creative Graphic Designer

Meant by web designing

Web design is the process of creating websites. It encompasses several different aspects, including webpage  layout, content production, and graphic design. While the terms web design and web development  are often used interchangeably, web design is technically a subset of the broader category of web development.

Websites are created using a  markup language  called HTML. Web designers build webpages using HTML tags  that define the content and  metadata  of each page. The layout and appearance of the elements within a webpage are typically defined using CSS, or cascading style sheets. Therefore, most websites include a combination of HTML and CSS that defines how each page will appear in a browser. 

Some web designers prefer to hand code pages (typing HTML and CSS from scratch), while others use a "WYSIWYG" editor like Adobe Dreamweaver. This type of editor provides a visual interface for designing the webpage layout and the software automatically generates the corresponding HTML and CSS code. Another popular way to design websites is with a content management system like WordPress or Joomla. These services provide different website templates that can be used as a starting point for a new website. Webmasters  can then add content and customize the layout using a web-based interface.

While HTML and CSS are used to design the look and feel of a website, images must be created separately. Therefore, graphic design may overlap with web design, since graphic designers often create images for use on the Web. Some graphics programs like Adobe Photoshop even include a "Save for Web........" option that provides an easy way to export images in a format optimized for web publishing. 

Top 10 articles About Web design

It’s 2018, and whether you’re a brand new business building your first website, or an established one in need of a revamp, there are a slew of factors you’ll need to take into account. Consumers and technology have evolved, SEO algorithms have changed, and new digital tools have emerged.  Good thing we’ve scoured the net to provide you with the top 25 web design articles of 2018 that will help you not only  product a great website, but capture new customers and grow your business at the same time.

1. Use These Web Design Tricks to Grow your Business Exponetially 

Gabriel Shaoolian from Entrepreneur talks about how to use web design tactics like video landing pages, parallax scrolling, and animated calls to action that will make a concrete impact on business growth.

2. The Four Web Design Trends Businesses Should Actually Care About 

What are some of the top web design trends for 2018 that your business should be aware of? Bryant Chou from Forbes goes over things like long-form multimedia, content hubs and e-books, and principles-first design.

3. 7 detailed tips on how to improve your website in 2018 

Technology is always changing, and it takes a lot of effort to keep your website in line with what’s new. Aaron Dicks from The Next Web takes a closer look at some of the most important technical improvements you can make to your website this year like mobile optimization and AMP for ads.

4. 5 steps to speed up your image heavy website 

One of the biggest website design optimization mistakes that businesses make is image size. Slow loading times hurts not only the user experience, but SEO and search rankings. Brandon Morelli of Codeburstio goes over how to audit your website for heavy image size, and make the necessary changes.

5. 5 Best Responsive Web Design Practices in 2018 

There’s no telling what device users might access your website on. Whether it’s PC, smartphone, or tablet, your website needs to be responsive to every device, browser and operating system to ensure a seamless experience. TG Daily breaks down everything from typography to grid design on how to make your website responsive.

6. 16 of the Best Landing Page Design Examples You Need to See in 2018

Landing pages can be one of the most effective tools in targeting your lead generation efforts towards specific customer segments. Here, Hubspot provides a ton of landing page inspiration for 2018. From big brands like Shopify and AirBnb, you’ll learn how to properly execute landing page elements like forms, copy, and layout.

7.  How to Rank in 2018: The SEO Checklist 

How your design your website can play a pivotal role in how you rank in search engines like Google and Bing. And there’s perhaps no better authority on SEO, SERP, and keyword analysis than Moz. Rand Finshkin breaks down everything you need to know about designing your website to be SEO friendly, taking into account updated ranking algorithm changes.

8.  How to Design a Tour Page: Examples and Best Practices 

Product tour pages are especially important for technology companies trying to showcase a product or service to potential buyers. Design Shack breaks down some of the best product tour pages of 2018 from successful brands like Mint.com and Basecamp so that you can apply some of the same principles to your own website.

9.  How to Design Your WordPress Blog in 2018

No matter what business you’re in, having a blog on your website has become virtually mandatory. And one of the most popular, useful, and flexible platforms to build both your website and blog is WordPress. Torque magazine provides some of the best tips for 2018 that will allow you to use WordPress to generate an attractive, user-friendly blog interface.

10. How to Get Truly Memorable Video Testimonials from Your Customers 

Nothing builds credibility with future customers better than testimonials from your current ones. Here, Zachary Basner provides a comprehensive guide on how to get some of the best customer testimonial content for your website, and produce it into engaging and informative video format.

Important elements of quality web design

7 important elements of quality web design

Now that you know the web design importance, it’s time to start looking at elements that make a quality design. Here are seven key elements you’ll want to incorporate into your web design.

1. SOLID NAVIGATION

When users access your site, they want to access information quickly and easily. If you want leads to remain on your page, you must implement a navigation that is easy for your audience to use.

Your audience doesn’t want to struggle to find information. They want to access your navigation bar and easily be directed to the information they need. If your navigation is poor, you’ll discourage your audience from engaging on your page.

Visitors’ attention spans are short. If you want to keep them on your page, you must help them access information quickly. A properly designed navigation will help them get to the information they need.

Your navigation should be simple and self-explanatory. Include broad headings that encompass numerous subtopics, so your audience can easily find the information they need. This is the easiest way for you to help your audience find information fast.

2. RESPONSIVE DESIGN

With the growth in mobile devices, responsive design is more important than ever. Your audience will access your site from a multitude of devices, including smartphones, tablets, and desktop computers. If you want these leads to remain on your site, you must ensure that each person has a positive experience.

Responsive design ensures that your audience has a good experience on your site, regardless of the device they use. Your website will adapt to the device to ensure that your website is sized appropriately for their device. This is valuable for keeping leads engaged and interested in your site.

Responsive design keeps leads engaged on your page longer. If you want to have a successful website design, you must integrate responsive design.

3. STYLE GUIDE

As we stated previously, one reason why web design is important is because it creates consistency across your entire website. Consistency helps your audience build brand recognition and keeps them engaged on your page longer. A style guide will help you keep a consistent brand image on your website.

Your style guide is the basis for how you want your website to look. You decide the color, format, typography, and more, for every page on your website. This ensures that every time someone adds an element to your site it is consistent with other pages.

You’ll help your team creates consistency across your website, too. They can reference your style guide anytime they add an element to your site. It makes it easier for different people to work on your website and add elements to it.

When you have a consistent design across your website, you create a more cohesive site. Your audience will engage on your site longer and build brand recognition. This will help you earn more conversions down the line.

4. PURPOSEFUL VISUALS

Companies are quick to integrate visual elements because they help improve engagement on a website. In fact, customers are 10 times more likely  to interact with a video than text.

While visual elements are great for engagement and breaking up text, some businesses go overboard with the images. Their sites are crowded with photos and videos. It makes the site feel overwhelming and cluttered.

You may think that it’s great to integrate and abundance of photos and videos to increase engagement, but it can become overwhelming if there are too many. Too many images makes it difficult to read on the page.

If you want to see success with your site, you must create a balance between images and text on your page. Don’t add visual elements for the sake of trying to increase engagement as much as possible.

Use visual elements purposefully. If you have a block of text detailing your services, integrate a video below that text that explains your services further. This still gives your audience a point of interest to interact with and keeps them engaged.

When you know why web design is important, you make more tactful decisions about your site. As you build your dream website, it’s crucial that you don’t overload your site with too many visual elements.

5. GOOD COPY

Your audience visits your website to obtain important information. It’s important that when you include information on your site, you write quality copy.

Writing good copy keeps your audience engaged on the page longer. They’ll read all your information and learn about your business. Your style of writing should align with the style of your website for consistency.

The content on your site matters just as much as the overall design, so it’s necessary for you to provide your audience with valuable information they need.

6. CALL-TO-ACTION (CTA) BUTTONS

Once you have leads on your site, you want to guide them towards converting. A key element of that is your call-to-action (CTA) button.  Web design importance is evident when you’re trying to get your audience to act.

A well-designed CTA button will get your audience to proceed to the next step. These buttons fit into your design but stand out on the page. Your audience’s eye immediately goes to these buttons.

If you had a color scheme of black, white, gray, and yellow, a yellow CTA button would stand out on the page compared to these other colors. It still fits with the scheme, but people will automatically be drawn towards a bright yellow button.

By integrating CTA buttons into your website’s design, you’ll help drive better results on your page.

7. PAGE SPEED

You can have an awesome website design, but it won’t matter if your audience never gets to see it. Page speed is an important element of web design. It ensures that your page loads quickly, so your audience can access information fast.

Your audience hates to wait for slow loading pages. If your page takes too long to load, your audience will lose interest. They will return to the search results and select a competitor’s page instead.

You can check your page’s speed by using  Google PageSpeed Insights. This tool allows you to see how quickly your site currently loads and where you can make improvements. You must make these improvements on your own.

The other option is to rely on page speed services  from a digital marketing company. This allows you to reap the benefits of a fast loading page, while focusing on running your business.

Web designing Importance

If only given 15 minutes to consume content, 66 percent of people  would prefer to see something beautifully designed versus something plain and simple. Your website’s design is an important part of your online marketing presence. To build a better website for your business, you must understand the importance of web design.

On this page, we’ll discuss why design is important and provide you with seven must-have design elements for your website. If you need help creating your dream website, call us today at 888-256-9448 to speak with a strategist.

Don't forget, WebFX doesn't just provide our services locally. Whether you're looking for  web design services in Washington, D.C., or web design services in Jacksonville, we've got you covered.

Why web design is important

As you look into redesigning your website, you may wonder the importance to website design. How does it impact your audience and your business? Let’s look at five reasons web design is important.

1. IT SETS THE FIRST IMPRESSION

When your audience visits your website, it gives them their first impression of your business. They will judge your business within seconds. In these first few seconds, you want to make a positive impact on your audience.

If your website looks unappealing or outdated, your audience will immediately have a negative impression of your business. They won’t find your website appealing, which deters them from your page. You’ll miss out on leads because they’ll leave your page for a competitor’s page.

Web design is important because it impacts how your audience perceives your brand. The impression you make on them can either get them to remain on your page and learn about your business or leave your page and turn to a competitor. A good web design helps you keep your leads on your page.

Homepage design

Homepage design

Usability experts, including Jakob Nielsen and Kyle Soucy, have often emphasised homepage design for website success and asserted that the homepage is the most important page on a website. However practitioners into the 2000s were starting to find that a growing number of website traffic was bypassing the homepage, going directly to internal content pages through search engines, e-newsletters and RSS feeds. Leading many practitioners to argue that homepages are less important than most people think. Jared Spool argued in 2007 that a site's homepage was actually the least important page on a website.

In 2012 and 2013, carousels (also called 'sliders' and 'rotating banners') have become an extremely popular design element on homepages, often used to showcase featured or recent content in a confined space. Many practitioners argue that carousels are an ineffective design element and hurt a website's search engine optimisation and usability.

Occupations

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. 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.

Further jobs which may become involved in the creation of a website include:

• Graphic designers  to create visuals for the site such as logos, layouts and buttons
• Internet marketing specialists to help maintain web presence through strategic solutions on targeting viewers to the site, by using marketing and promotional techniques on the internet
• SEO writers to research and recommend the correct words to be incorporated into a particular website and make the website more accessible and found on numerous search engines
• Internet copywriter to create the written content of the page to appeal to the targeted viewers of the site
• User experience(UX) designer  incorporates aspects of user-focused design considerations which include information architecture, user-centered design, user testing, interaction design, and occasionally visual design.

Page layout

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 as an alternative to HTML-table-based layouts and grid-based design in both page layout design principle and in coding technique, but were very slow to be adopted. This was due to considerations of 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, 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. As the browser does recognize the details of the reader's screen (window size, font size relative to window etc.) the browser can make user-specific layout adjustments to fluid layouts, but not fixed-width layouts. 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 @media rule. In March 2018 Google announced they would be rolling out mobile-first indexing. Sites using responsive design are well placed to ensure they meet this new approach.

Typography

Main article: 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 typefaces  or 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.

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.

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 making sure coded elements are closed appropriately. This includes errors in code, more organized layout for code, and making sure IDs and classes are identified properly. Poorly-coded pages are sometimes colloquially called  tag soup. Validating via W3C 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.

Generated content

There are two ways websites are generated: statically or dynamically.

Static websites

Main article: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  and Adobe Muse.

The benefits of a static website are that they were simpler to host, as their server only needed to  Static 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. These advantage became less important as cheap web hosting expanded to also offer dynamic features, and Virtual servers 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 article: Dynamic web page

Dynamic websites are generated on the fly and use server-side technology to generate webpages. They typically extract their content from one or more back-end databases: some are database queries across a relational database to query a catalogue or to summarise numeric information, 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 wireframed using static pages. The skillset needed to develop dynamic web pages is much broader than for a static pages, 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 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 systems. 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 organisational 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.

History of web designing 2001-2012

History

Since the start of the 21st century the web has become more and more integrated into peoples lives. As this has happened the technology of the web has also moved on. There have also been significant changes in the way people use and access the web, and this has changed how sites are designed.

Since the end of the browsers wars new browsers have been released. Many of these are open source  meaning that they tend to have faster development and are more supportive of new standards. The new options are considered by many to be better than Microsoft's internet Explorer.

The W3C has released new standards for HTML (HTML5) and CSS (CSS3), as well as new JavaScript API's, each as a new but individual standard. While the term HTML5 is only used to refer to the new version of HTML and some of the JavaScript API's, it has become common to use it to refer to the entire suite of new standards (HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript).

Tools and technologies

Web designers use a variety of different tools depending on what part of the production process they are involved in. These tools are updated over time by newer standards and software but the principles behind them remain the same. Web designers use both vector and raster  graphics editors to create web-formatted imagery or design prototypes. Technologies used to create websites include W3C standards like HTML and CSS, which can be hand-coded or generated by WYSIWYG editing software. Other tools web designers might use include mark up validators  and other testing tools for usability and accessibility to ensure their websites meet web accessibility guidelines.

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 (B2B)  business-to-business 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, 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 favourably.

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 with website use may find a more distinctive, yet less intuitive or less  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. Much of the user experience design and interactive design are considered in the user interface design. 

Advanced interactive functions may require 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 or 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.

History of web designing

History

1988___2001

Although web design has a fairly recent history. It can be linked to other areas such as graphic design, user experience, and multimedia arts, but is more aptly seen from a technological standpoint. It has become a large part of people’s everyday lives. It is hard to imagine the Internet without animated graphics, different styles of typography, background, and music.

The start of the web and web design

In 1989, whilst working at CERN Tim Berners_lee proposed to create a global hypertext project, which later became known as the World Wide Web. During 1991 to 1993 the World Wide Web was born. Text-only pages could be viewed using a simple line-mode browser. In 1993 Marc Andressen and Eric Bina,  created the Mosaic Browser. At the time there were multiple browsers, however the majority of them were Unix-based and naturally text heavy. There had been no integrated approach to graphic design elements such as images or sounds. The Mosaic browser broke this mould. The W3C was created in October 1994 to "lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its interoperability." This discouraged any one company from monopolizing a propriety browser and programming language, which could have altered the effect of the World Wide Web as a whole. The W3C continues to set standards, which can today be seen with JavaScript and other languages. In 1994 Andreessen formed Mosaic Communications Corp. that later became known as Netscape Communications, the Netscape 0.9 browser. Netscape created its own HTML tags without regard to the traditional standards process. For example, Netscape 1.1 included tags for changing background colours and formatting text with tables on web pages. Throughout 1996 to 1999 the browser wars began, as Microsoft and Netscape fought for ultimate browser dominance. During this time there were many new technologies in the field, notably  cascadig Style Sheets, Java script, and Dynamic HTML.  On the whole, the browser competition did lead to many positive creations and helped web design evolve at a rapid pace.

Evolution of web designing:

In 1996, Microsoft released its first competitive browser, which was complete with its own features and HTML tags. It was also the first browser to support style sheets, which at the time was seen as an obscure authoring technique and is today an important aspect of web design. The HTML markup for tables was originally intended for displaying tabular data. However designers quickly realized the potential of using HTML tables for creating the complex, multi-column layouts that were otherwise not possible. At this time, as design and good aesthetics seemed to take precedence over good mark-up structure, and little attention was paid to semantics and web accesibility. HTML sites were limited in their design options, even more so with earlier versions of HTML. To create complex designs, many web designers had to use complicated table structures or even use blank spacer.GIF images to stop empty table cells from collapsing. CSS was introduced in December 1996 by the W3C to support presentation and layout. This allowed HTML code to be semantic rather than both semantic and presentational, and improved web accessibility, see tableless web design.

In 1996, Flash (originally known as FutureSplash) was developed. At the time, the Flash content development tool was relatively simple compared to now, using basic layout and drawing tools, a limited precursor to ActionScript, and a timeline, but it enabled web designers to go beyond the point of HTML, animated GIFs  and JavaScript. However, because Flash required a plug-in, many web developers avoided using it for fear of limiting their market share due to lack of compatibility. Instead, designers reverted to gif animations (if they didn't forego using motion graphics  altogether) and JavaScript for .  But the widgets benefits of Flash made it popular enough among specific target markets to eventually work its way to the vast majority of browsers, and powerful enough to be used to develop entire sites.

End  of the first browser wars:

During 1998 Netscape released Netscape Communicator code under an open source licence,  enabling thousands of developers to participate in improving the software. However, they decided to start from the beginning, which guided the development of the open source browser and soon expanded to a complete application platform. The Web Standards Project  was formed and promoted browser compliance with HTML and CSS standards by creating Acid1, Acid2, and Acid3 tests. 2000 was a big year for Microsoft. Internet Explorer was released for Mac; this was significant as it was the first browser that fully supported HTML 4.01 and CSS 1, raising the bar in terms of standards compliance

The Importance of Website Design

There are numerous factors that lead to a successful online presence. There are various ways to look at the whole standing of your website as well. But before going on any further, let’s focus first on one of the most basic elements that make up your online identity — your website design. How exactly important is it?

The design of your website can either make or break the business you are trying to deliver. It actually makes a difference on how your target audience views your business or company and potentially turn them into your customers. As such, developing a website design that has an impressive user interface will result in a much better conversion rate, which leads to better business and revenue.

How Website Design Becomes an Asset to Business

Although it can cost you a substantial amount of money, investing in a website design can generate an outstanding profit for your business. To ensure that your investment works according to your advantage, you must hire an efficient website designer who is capable of dealing with the following key points in designing a website:

1. Navigation

This is essential especially when your website has so many pages. It basically includes a well-labeled navigation bar or a menu that shows a list of the different web pages. When the website navigation is developed well, users can easily explore and understand your website. It doesn’t need to have state of the art typefaces. Settle for a simple yet intuitive navigation that can make visitors come back for more.

Web design encompasses many different skills and disciplines in the production and maintenance of websites. The different areas of web design include web graphic design; interface design authoring, including standardised code and proprietary software; user experience design; and search engine optimization Often many individuals will work in teams covering different aspects of the design process, although some designers will cover them all. The term web design is normally used to describe the design process relating to the front-end (client side) design of a website including writing markup. Web design partially overlaps web engineering in the broader scope of web development 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.

History

1988–2001

Although web design has a fairly recent history. It can be linked to other areas such as graphic design, user experience, and multimedia arts, but is more aptly seen from a technological standpoint. It has become a large part of people’s everyday lives. It is hard to imagine the Internet without animated graphics, different styles of typography, background, and music.

The start of the web and web design

In 1989, whilst working at CERN Tim Berners-lee proposed to create a global hypertext project, which later became known as the World Wide Web. During 1991 to 1993 the World Wide Web was born. Text-only pages could be viewed using a simple line-mode browser. In 1993 Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina, created the Mosaic browser At the time there were multiple browsers, however the majority of them were Unix-based and naturally text heavy. There had been no integrated approach to graphic design elements such as images or sounds. The Mosaic browser broke this mould. The W3C was created in October 1994 to "lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its interoperability." This discouraged any one company from monopolizing a propriety browser and programming language, which could have altered the effect of the World Wide Web as a whole. The W3C continues to set standards, which can today be seen with JavaScript and other languages. In 1994 Andreessen formed Mosaic Communications Corp. that later became known as Netscape Communications the Netscape 0.9 browser. Netscape created its own HTML tags without regard to the traditional standards process. For example, Netscape 1.1 included tags for changing background colours and formatting text with tables on web pages. Throughout 1996 to 1999 the browser wars began, as Microsoft and Netscape fought for ultimate browser dominance. During this time there were many new technologies in the field, notably Cascading Style Sheets, JavaScript, and Dynamic HTML. On the whole, the browser competition did lead to many positive creations and helped web design evolve at a rapid pace.