646-979-0291Web Design has come a long way since the early days of the Internet. Today the practice is much more sophisticated, requiring Designers to understand how to craft better experiences, build more engaging layouts, and develop interactive interfaces that are focused on achieving business goals.
Likewise, business managers must understand the purpose of their websites in relation to the end user. This is important in order to properly define scopes, assess web design costs, and predict future outcomes as best as possible.
Our agency will guide you through the creation of a great design for your site. Below is more information on how DigitalSpawn approaches Web Design, helping you move closer to defining the requirements of your design project.
What is Web Design?
Web Design involves creating the visual appearance and user experience of a website or web application. It encompasses aspects of interface design, graphic design, user experience design, interaction design, and information architecture.
The design process typically involves the use of graphic design tools such as Photoshop, Adobe XD, Figma, or even simple programs like MS Paint.
The design of a website is critical to the overall user experience and the quality of the user interface. Effective web design should incorporate key elements of UX and UI into the design stage to ensure a great user experience.
What is UX Design?
User Experience (UX) refers to the overall experience of a user when interacting with a website or web application. It covers a wide range of factors that contribute to the user’s perception and enjoyment.
UX design is the process of designing and improving the user experience of a website or web application. This can involve various elements, such as the overall visual style and aesthetics, presentation of content, usability, navigational pathways, emotional triggers, branding, customer support and education, and other experience-related attributes.
The goal of UX design is to create a positive and seamless experience for the user so they can easily achieve their desired goals.
In UX design, designers consider various aspects of the user’s experience, such as the look and feel of the website, the functionality and accessibility of the site, the organization of content, and the ease of use. They also consider the user’s goals and motivations, as well as any potential pain points or obstacles they may encounter while using the site. The designer’s ultimate goal is to create a website or application that is intuitive, engaging, and enjoyable to use.
It involves thinking through questions a target user may have, including:
- Does it look professional and function well
- Is it easy to find specific information
- How many steps get users to the desired goal
- and much more.
UX design is a critical aspect of web design, as it plays a significant role in determining the success and overall satisfaction of a digital product. A well-designed user experience can increase engagement, improve user satisfaction, and drive conversions, while a poor user experience can lead to frustration and decreased usage.
What is UI Design?
UI stands for User Interface. It is more tangible and refers to the digital elements users will interact with.
Specifically, it involves the development of cross-browser layouts, typography, branding assets, color scheme, sourcing or creating icons, sourcing images, developing interactions, developing animations, developing error reporting, designing for high performance, and more.
Also, designers sometimes can code HTML and CSS from their own designs, but this is rare.
What does Web Design cost?
The cost of web design services is a small percentage of the total cost of building and running an online business. Designs are often done once in the beginning, and sometimes not for several years for small to medium-sized businesses.
Larger businesses will have many design projects in the pipeline all year long. This of course means they will have higher costs compared to the typical scenario.
What are typical Web Design deliverables?
The typical web design deliverables include wireframe images, style guide documents, design mockup images, and master design files produced by graphic editing software.
Let me explain what these various deliverables are.
Wireframes
Wireframes are presented as images in most cases. These images will show a basic outline of all the various content blocks for each key page on the site. It may include placeholder text for headings, paragraphs, and other text content. It will also show areas for images, videos, and icons.
Style Guide
The style guide will be more graphically rich with colors, font treatment of the text, icons, and other stylistic features. It represents what the site will look like and “feel like”. It presents the general aesthetic of the site.
Design Mockups
Design mockups are images representing the full and final look of the site or app. It’s essentially a combination of the wireframes and style guide. Also, it most likely will not include any real text, but will often have images and icons used in the final production.
Design mockups may also include specifications that describe the length of spaces, dimensions of blocks or boxes, section sizing, image placement, various font, and font sizing examples, and other measurements.
Master Design File
The master design file is produced by the graphic software program used to create the designs. This file can be sent to other designers, stakeholders, and developers.
The master design, when loaded in graphic software, will include layers, sections, element groups, fonts, icons, and images.
Other files associated with a design include font files, icon files, and branding assets.
How DigitalSpawn approaches web design?
Our approach to Web Design starts by establishing dependency on the Plan, which is the 2nd phase in our web development system. The planning phase is critical for developing the foundation of the site or app and influences the design more than anything else.
Modern designs are very sophisticated. The best companies have websites that are attractive, compelling, and memorable. They stand out and are always interesting. This is “how it looks”.
There is another element that is a bit more nuanced which is how easy it is to use. This requires organizing content into a hierarchy based on priority. Presenting important information clearly and upfront is critical to the user experience.
Other considerations include interactive elements. The designer must consider events that the user may trigger by interacting with links, buttons, and other elements and design for these events.
How DigitalSpawn handles web design Q&A
For an effective design project to be successful, the client must be fully involved and engaged. The client often has all the information needed to build the plan which ultimately translates to the designs.
The dependence on client input at the beginning and during the design process dramatically improves the quality of the output. Without good collaboration, the final results will not meet expectations.
Informing, educating, and training the client is also embedded into the communications. The goal is to make the client aware enough to make the best decisions.