Web design overview

Web design has evolved rapidly over the years. Initially, browsers were basic, and early versions of HTML were fairly limited in what they enabled designers to do. Therefore, many older sites on the Web are plain in appearance. Additionally, the Web was originally largely a technical repository, hence the boring layouts of many sites in the mid 1990s—after all, statistics, documentation, and papers rarely need to be jazzed up, and the audience didn’t
demand such things anyway. As with any medium finding its feet, things soon changed, especially once the general public flocked to the Web. It was no longer enough for websites to be text-based information repositories. Users craved—demanded, even—color! Images! Excitement! Animation! Interaction! Even video and audio managed to get a foothold as compression techniques improved and connection speeds increased. The danger of eye candy became all too apparent as the turn of the century approached: every site, it seemed, had a Flash intro, and the phrase “skip intro” became so common that it eventually spawned a parody website. These days, site design has tended toward being more restrained, as designers have become more comfortable with using specific types of technologies for relevant and
appropriate purposes. Therefore, you’ll find beautifully designed XHTML- and CSS-based sites sitting alongside highly animated Flash efforts. Of late, special emphasis is being placed on usability and accessibility, and, in the majority
of cases, designers have cottoned to the fact that content must take precedence. However, just because web standards, usability, and accessibility are key, that doesn’t mean design should be thrown out the window. As we’ll see in later chapters, web standards do not have to come at the expense of good design—far from it. In fact, a strong understanding
of web standards helps to improve websites, making it easier for you to create cutting edge layouts that work across platforms and are easy to update. It also provides you with a method of catering for obsolete devices.

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