The intent of Web design[1] is to create a website—a collection of electronic documents and applications that reside on a Web server/servers and present content and interactive features/interfaces to the end user in form of Web pages once requested. Such elements as text, bit-mapped images (GIFs, JPEGs) and forms can be placed on the page using HTML/XHTML/XML tags. Displaying more complex media (vector graphics, animations, videos, sounds) requires plug-ins such as Adobe Flash, QuickTime, Java run-time environment, etc. Plug-ins are also embedded into web page by using HTML/XHTML tags.
Improvements in browsers' compliance with W3C standards prompted a widespread acceptance and usage of XHTML/XML in conjunction with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to position and manipulate web page elements and objects. Latest standards and proposals aim at leading to browsers' ability to deliver a wide variety of content and accessibility options to the client possibly without employing plug-ins.
Typically Web pages are classified as static or dynamic:
- Static pages don’t change content and layout with every request unless a human (web master/programmer) manually updates the page. A simple HTML page is an example of static content.
- Dynamic pages adapt their content and/or appearance depending on end-user’s input/interaction or changes in the computing environment (user, time, database modifications, etc.) Content can be changed on the client side (end-user's computer) by using client-side scripting languages (JavaScript, JScript, Actionscript, etc.) to alter DOM elements (DHTML). Dynamic content is often compiled on the server utilizing server-side scripting languages (Perl, PHP, ASP, JSP, ColdFusion, etc.). Both approaches are usually used in complex applications.
Web design is a kind of graphic design intended for development and styling of objects of the Internet's information environment to provide them with high-end consumer features and aesthetic qualities. The offered definition separates Web design from web programming, emphasizing the functional features of a web site, as well as positioning web design as a kind of graphic design.[2]
The process of designing web pages, web sites, web applications or multimedia for the Web may utilize multiple disciplines, such as animation, authoring, communication design, corporate identity, graphic design, human-computer interaction, information architecture, interaction design, marketing, photography, search engine optimization and typography.
- Markup languages (such as HTML, XHTML and XML)
- Style sheet languages (such as CSS and XSL)
- Client-side scripting (such as JavaScript)
- Server-side scripting (such as PHP and ASP)
- Database technologies (such as MySQL and PostgreSQL)
- Multimedia technologies (such as Flash and Silverlight)
With growing specialization within communication design and information technology fields, there is a strong tendency to draw a clear line between Web design specifically for web pages and Web development for the overall logistics of all web-based services.
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