One peculiarity of web design is the fact that designers have only conditional formal control over the products and applications they design. Only contingently can they determine how the various elements of their design will appear on a user’s screen, particularly with regard to sizes, positions, font sizes, and colors.
This is primarily a result of the different technologies that users employ (computers, displays, operating systems, browsers), though it is also linked to the fact that the foundational structures for the WWW are written in the page description language HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), which necessitates that formal data is always defined variably, depending on the structured marking of information.
The World Wide Web, created by Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau at the Center for European Nuclear Research in 1989, was originally intended to facilitate the rapid exchange of text based documents communicating scientific results across international networks.
Hypertext Transfer Protocol, or HTTP, was specifically created for this purpose. As web sites developed, however, the division of content, on the one hand, from layout or formal design, on the other, created additional possibilities for personalized presentations (colors, hierarchies, fonts, sizes, etc.). This compelled designers to think systematically so as to create a consistent and comprehensible presentation of content.
Subsequently, technological developments and the increasing complexity of the information supply have led to a growing emphasis on user-friendly designs that work from the user’s point of view. Only content and information that come across quickly and comprehensibly have a chance to get noticed amidst the vast resources of information available. Legal structures have been significantly expanded in recent years to eliminate barriers to information resources for users with limited perceptual abilities, thus giving them access to participation in Internet communication.
As part of this effort, a series of standardizations has been issued to optimize the usability and accessibility of web sites. One disadvantage is that this has sharply restricted the development of what might be a wholly new medial language unique to the Internet. Jacob Nielsen, who has made particular use of cognitive psychological research to make web sites simpler and more intuitive, deserves particular mention as one of the pioneers of usability in web design.
In recent years, HTML-independent software technologies like Flash have given designers more control over the formal presentation of their designs, as well as opening up new animation, audiovisual and interactive possibilities.
With all of the tools at hand, designers should keep in mind, however, that simple solutions are often best, as demonstrated by the success of the relatively minimal search engine interface for Google. The next generation of the Internet, Web 2.0 (Social Web), meets the new needs of web design, particularly those regarding the strategic integration of users. It is increasingly the case that users not only view web sites, but also interact with them through the use of comments and links.
This represents a fundamental change in the paradigm of “use” in information services, since users can increasingly influence or even directly build the content of the sites they use. Among the best-known examples of this development are Wikipedia and the book reviews on Amazon. What is more, the evaluation of pages and information services in connection with dynamic information architectures generates a structure determined by usage.
Frequently searched or highly rated data are positioned at a higher hierarchical level, thus making them potentially easier to find. For designers, this means designing not only the interface level, but taking on an expanded role in the structuring and strategic conception of information services themselves.
Systematic design leads to the development of intelligent interfaces, with designers defining rules for the appearance, procedures, and interconnectedness of the elements. Here, too, designers must anticipate use, since this determines the form of presentation and renders the system’s structures, to the extent necessary, transparent and comprehensible ( Information Design).
The convergence of such media as print, television, the Internet, and mobile communications into a transmedially networked system demands a formal language that will be consistent for users, a comprehensible interaction concept, and an editorial and formal design of content that conforms to the respective media (and their most likely usage situations). It is therefore important that all of the different media be taken into consideration when developing information services for the Internet. Designers play a decisive role in this process as expert mediators between the participating disciplines.
Their strengths lie in the evaluation of user behavior, the development of dynamic information architectures and concepts of interaction, the design of accessible and recognizable layouts, and the anticipation of future forms of use through personas and scenarios.
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