Designing your Web Site It is important to plan and outline the design on which you are going to base your work. Like any other work, Web page designing and publishing also needs a design layout and some planning. If you just go ahead and start putting your random thoughts or ideas then your Web site will be very difficult to navigate through and it will not be understood by the users. It does not take too much effort to design and plan your Web site. In fact, it becomes much easier to expand such a website later. Flow of Web Information A Web site is a collection of Web pages that are linked with each other to form one single body of information. A Web site can offer information about the object that it aims to describe using text, graphics, and audio or maybe in some cases video. Web sites vary from personal/hobby pages to online shopping Web sites, which include Auto Retail Web Design, E-commerce Web Design, Real Estate Web Site Design, Medical Web Site Design, Presentation Site Web Design, Travel Web Design. There are also online education, information and publication Web sites. Basically web site content can be almost anything. It all depends on the developer's creativity and design. It may be possible that at the onset you may not be sure as to what you want to publish in your Web site. Objective Of The Web Site Web sites are designed keeping in mind a particular set of audience or clients. But with the incredible reach of this medium it has become necessary to keep in mind the global audience. The chance of a web site being visited by not just its target audience is increasing by the day. A very common design technique is to design the Web site in such a manner that it reflects the image of the person, the company or the product. Basically you have to decide on your primary Web audience and then depending on that create your website. If you just want to put your personal information or hobby page on the Web, then you can develop a web site that shows just that a personal information page containing your hobbies, your pictures and every-thing else that you would like others to know about you. If you are making a Web page for a company then, you will be primarily addressing the market audience. In such a case your Web site will be containing company profile, job openings, product information and other such features. Another similar example is the online shopping stores on the Web. If you intend creating an online store for selling books then the book reader becomes you main audience. Whether your target audience is a student, a teacher, an artist or a businessman, your website is still open to the world at large. At no point of time is it restricted to any one type of audience. Once your Web site is on the Internet it can be viewed by anyone in the world. Keeping this in mind you have to develop and design your Web site. Basic Interface Design The users of the Internet prefer to view web sites that are not only rich in content but have an equally attractive visual interface and design. To create a website which has these features is not too difficult. Web pages are different from printed documents or books since they are based on hypertext links. Therefore Web pages need to have more intuitive design. You can use graphic icons as navigation and interaction aids to make the Web site attractive. Since, the Internet faces the constraint of bandwidth; the graphics used have to be not only attractive but also small in their file size. A significant aspect of designing user interface is providing a link to the main page of the Web site, i.e. the opening page. The World Wide Web is a huge network of computers and often while browsing you have no clue from where a certain page originates and to where you may go on your next mouse click. In order to minimize this you should include a HOME link to your main site page so that the user knows the origin or the starting point of the particular Web site. This link can be a graphic icon or simple text link, it largely depends on the complete page design. Using these features in your interface you can give the user a very helpful and efficient Web interface. Developing A Storyboard For The Web Site A storyboard helps you to plan Web site and decide what goes where before you actually start constructing. In this way, you end up creating an outline of the Web site much before you actually start developing. This storyboard should contain all the information of the Web site, which includes the function of the site, it's target audience, the graphic layout and design, navigation within the Website and the overall functionality of the site. If the web site is small and simple, then you may find this not so essential. But where the Web site is complex and involves more than two or three people, there you should definitely consider using storyboard. In large Web site development, storyboard not only saves time but also avoids a lot of unnecessary confusion and mistakes. Storyboarding can be done on sheets of paper or by using special software packages. The best software utilities for doing this are those that also help in Web site management. These packages give you a graphical view of the entire Web site with hyperlinks and also the provision for modifying. A popular software for Web site planning and development is Microsoft's FrontPage Explorer, which shows you the complete website design on one single page with all links and options displayed. Change in one link automatically gets reflected in other relevant pages. SiteMan, is another software, very user-friendly and allows the user to check the site offline and has the provision of making site-wide changes. Then there is NetObjects Fusion also used for site administration and management purposes. Navigation And Links Within The Website It is always helpful if you divide your web site into sections and then list down the broad goals for each section. Once you have made the broad categories you need to work towards website navigation and organization. As you know that most of the user interaction with Web pages on a site is done using navigating hypertext links. The most common interface problem arises when the user gets lost in the site. This problem can be solved if proper and clear graphics. Icons or text based navigation help is included in the Web page. Using these navigation bars you help the user in understanding your Web site layout. If these navigation bars are not included in the design then the user is totally dependent on the Web browser buttons of 'Back' and 'Forward' which have the possibility of taking him out of your web site.
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