Tutorial - A Designer's Approach to Web Page Creation

Presenter: Stephen Boyd Davis, University of Middlesex

Abstract

What are the key issues facing website designers? One is the tension between the graphic designer's desire to dictate the exact look of the screen, and the flexibility originally intended for the World Wide Web. (Designers with a print background are horrified when they discover that users may resize the window, set different text sizes, and choose not to install fonts.) Another is the 'depth' of websites: the designer who considers only the look of each screen and not the site structure and the interactions which take place there is not a competent web designer. In print, the structures are normally given, but in the Web they must be invented. And what about maintenance? A website design must not be so brittle it cannot adapt and grow.

The Web now allows the designer significant opportunities, but only designers with a thorough understanding of the medium will be able to exploit it successfully.

The level of the tutorial will be 'intermediate'.