Designing for the web

Website Design

I have been designing and developing websites professionally for over 12 years now. I started publishing webpages when I was 12 years old and grew up along with the internet, keeping up with its evolution and the trends that define what a website is and does.

The way a website is built may have changed, its goal of communicating a message, hasn't. That's why building a site starts with the message first, then the design and development. The design and development go hand in hand as design is more than just how pretty the site looks. It's also about how it functions, so the programming and interface should be integrated and work off of each other. A key to understanding how a website should look is based on an understanding of how its interface needs to be programmed.

Interface Design

While interaction design is a common element of web design and interface design, designing an app is very different from designing a website. It takes an added knowledge of interaction design patterns that make an application feel almost like using a physical tool, not just simply reading an interactive magazine as in the case of a website.

Good Interface design also requires Product Design, understanding how a product or service works and building a tool that makes it intuitive for the user person using it. It should be integrated in the entire process yet fade into the background, letting the person using it focus on their specific task, not on figuring out how to use the tool. This applies to any kind of app, regardless of the system it's on, including a web app.

Mobile Responsive Design

Now that computers have evolved into smaller devices, the web is evolving with them, changing once again the definition of a website. Building a website that works across devices requires that the site's central message is more focused and clear. It should be simple enough to understand and fit on a four inch screen.

All the websites I've been designing lately have been made responsive from the beginning, and all my own sites (including this one) I have revamped from the ground up to be responsive. It's the way I plan to build all my websites moving forward.

The responsive method to website design should not only take into consideration adjusting the layout to look good across mobile devices, but it should work well for each specific device. Just as apps are designed for individual devices, the website should follow similar guidelines in its design's details.

Front End Development

The output of a web page involves these core components: CSS, HTML and Javascript. They make up the front end, interaction layer of a site or web app. I still continue writing CSS and HTML code by hand and JQuery for handling the Javascript. Even as complex as a site can get, it's still the most efficient and cleanest way to do it.

I am also familiar with back end programming languages like PHP, but the front end development is still the primary craft I have developed since the very beginning. In fact, to the degree that I have come to understand back end programming, a lot of it has been for the purpose of building better front end experiences.

Interactive Design

One of the big phenomenon's of the web's past has been using Flash to add interactivity. I have built quite a few sites using Flash years ago. When it comes to interactivity, there is a lesson that the Flash phase of the web has taught us: the web is an interactive medium by nature and people like to interact (as is our own nature). Interactivity and animation can serve a specific purpose as long as they're not just used for their own sake.