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Web Design: The Complete Documentation

• This category contains 8 Papers
• The last paper was added on 2007-03-26 (YYYY-MM-DD)

Auxiliary Benefits of Accessible Web Design

Published on 2002-03-24, by Andrew Arch, ©World Wide Web Consortium.

This document is one of several resources created to assist the preparation of a business case for the implementation of Web accessibility. It describes the many business, technical and other benefits to the organization above and beyond the straightforward benefits to people with disabilities that can be realized by applying the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 1.0) to Web sites.

Forging a partnership between designer and user

Published on 2004-09-01, by Sarah Horton, ©Digital Web Magazine.

In the material world, we are generally passive consumers of design. Each day we interact with the elements of our environment—buildings, walkways, vehicles, appliances and so on—and we have very little control over how they look or how they function. Our experience, good or bad, is driven by their design. We do not expect to take control of an element and make it more suitable to our needs or better match our expectations. And so we have a love-hate relationship with design. The designs we love are those we interact with successfully. We chafe at designs that do not fit.

Principles of Design (The)

Published on 2005-06-13, by Joshua David McClurg-Genevese, ©Digital Web Magazine.

This column is about Web design—really, it is—though it may at times seem a bit distant and distracted. In my opinion, any good discussion about design begins with the fundamentals. Almost by definition, the primary tenets around which any field is based are universal: they can be applied to a variety of disciplines in a variety of ways. This can cause some confusion as principle is put into practice within the unique constraints of a particular medium.

Web design is a relatively new profession compared to other forms of design, due to the youth of our medium. As with any design discipline, there are aspects of the Web design process that are unique to the medium, such as screen resolution, additive color spaces and image compression. But too often these more unique details override our sense of the bigger picture. We focus on the fact that it is Web design and push aside core design concepts—concepts that can that make any project stronger without interfering in the more technical considerations later on.

Principles of Universal Design

Published on 1997-01-04, by Bettye Rose Connell, Mike Jones, Ron Mace, Jim Mueller, Abir Mullick, Elaine Ostroff, Jon Sanford, Ed Steinfeld, Molly Story, & Gregg Vanderheiden, ©NC State University.

The authors, a working group of architects, product designers, engineers and environmental design researchers, collaborated to establish the following Principles of Universal Design to guide a wide range of design disciplines including environments, products, and communications. These seven principles may be applied to evaluate existing designs, guide the design process and educate both designers and consumers about the characteristics of more usable products and environments.

Random Image Rotation

Published on 20 October 2003, by Dan Benjamin, ©A List Apart Magazine.

One of the challenges facing the modern web designer is to create sites that appear fresh and new every time a visitor shows up.

Stopdesign: a design process revealed

Published on , by Douglas Bowman, ©Stopdesign.

For individuals who are neither designers nor artists, it may seem like those who are, use a lot of smoke and mirrors, magically whipping up each stunning creation. Artistic talent and creativity can certainly aid and enhance the final result, but design, in particular, generally follows a process. Each designer — or design group — develops a method for solving problems, then evolves that method over time. While no one person or group may view a problem from the same perspective, general similarities often appear in their approach.

Tackling Usability Gotchas in Large-scale Site Redesigns

Published on 14 November 2003, by Jeffrey Zeldman, ©A List Apart Magazine.

Improving usability is a good motivation for redesigns and was the driving force behind the ALA 3.0 redesign. But redesigns often introduce new usability problems. In this article, I’ll discuss one such problem and the way we addressed it, focusing on the creative dilemma and its solution rather than on the technical implementation details. You may be redesigning a large or mid-sized content site and restructuring it in the process. If so, you might face the same problem ALA did, and the thinking that went into our solution might help you craft your own.

Why tables for layout is stupid

Published on 2003, by Bill Merikallio, Adam Pratt, ©Bill Merikallio, Adam Pratt.

Tables existed in HTML for one reason: To display tabular data. But then border="0" made it possible for designers to have a grid upon which to lay out images and text. Still the most dominant means of designing visually rich Web sites, the use of tables is now actually interfering with building a better, more accessible, flexible, and functional Web. Find out where the problems stem from, and learn solutions to create transitional or completely table-less layout.