The three key questions to ask before designing a layout
1. What is the purpose of the website?
2. Who is the target audience?
3. What does the target audience need from the website?
In order to be noticed, we must bend the rules of web design.
In order to understand what the target audience needs or wants. we must ask the audience, through focus groups, surveys etc.
Navigation, Type and Image are the fundamental aspects of any working website.
Limitations for designing for the internet.
Size in a physical form.
The resolution and screen size change with everyones computer monitor. There are also mobiles, tabs, kindles etc. To get around this, we design for the smallest size, however this is 800x600 which can be too small for the majority screens or projectors. The best thing to do is design for the next one up from the base.
Resolution
Screens are normally considered as 72dpi, however even though the original internet was born into a 72dpi and every website was designed at 72dpi, PC's were released at 96dpi. So all websites since 1992 the have been designed at 96ppi. We must consider the retina display options for new computers which are 220 dpi, almost as high as print.
Fonts
Times is the default font for every website in the world, fonts are a problem due to the licensing issues. When creating a website, they do not embed the fonts on the website, we must specify what font a website uses and give alternatives. With custom fonts, we can save as an image however, the SEO is not going to work, the Search Engine Optimiser searches the internet for words in the paragraph of every site in the world. A webkit allows us to install and embed a font into the website, there can be issues of licensing here as when you release it on your website, you are technically distributing the font. The typographer then can ask for royalties as people have access to the font for free instead of buying it from them as the source.
Colour
In different parts of the world, RGB screen colour mode differs, so we must use a web-safe colour which is indicated in the colour picker in Photoshop or Illustrator etc. Select "Only web colours" and specify the hexadecimal code. eg . cc3333
Coding / Script Languages
HTML - Hyper Text Markup Language
CSS - Cascading Style Sheet
These are the two main scripting languages which are used when designing for web.
We can see the code for any website by viewing the source.
With coding, what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG)
URL - Uniform Resource Locator based on the uniform way scientists originally located bits of information when developing the web. In order to transfer a web design into the live internet we must not only buy the URL, we must buy space.
FTP - File Transfer Protocol
CMS - Content Management system, this is something such as a Blogger and Facebook. This can be used for clients to log into their own website and edit it themselves.
We must get a sign off on the design, if the client changes their mind about a scamp design, they must pay if its signed.
Dimensions: 1024 x 768
Font Family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif
Alignment: Centre
Background Colour: White
Navigation: TopNavigation
Alignment: Centre
Width of Navigation: 720 (152 gap either side)
Navigation Buttons: 180 wide x 100 high
Grid: 3x3Grid: 341 341 342 wide
Pages: 4
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