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Site Analysis Web Design Versus Web Development
The terms web designer and web developer are used interchangeably in the media
and advertisements. But, they are not the same thing. Design involves what the
visitor sees on your website, development involves the site’s functionality.
This article explores the difference between these two disciplines.
A website contains several distinct aspects:
Look and feel – primarily the graphics, color scheme, navigation
elements, etc.
Content – information, products, etc available on the site.
Functionality – functionality includes interactive features that the web
site provides to the visitors and the required infrastructure needed to provide
them.
Usability – the site from a visitor’s perspective and includes things
like program interactions, navigation and usefulness.
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Look And Feel
Look and feel includes overall appearance of the
website. A Graphic designer decides on what
colors and fonts to use and how to layout each
of the sites pages.
The graphic designer needs to have a good
appreciation for aesthetics and feeling for what
combinations of colors and imagery will project
the image that the website owner wants visitors
to have of the site.
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Content
Content is all of the text that is found on a
website and includes everything from the privacy
policy to a very persuasive sales letter
extolling the benefits of a product and asking
the visitor to part with their hard earned money
and everything in between. If it is written text
then it is part of the content. You need a
copywriter and editor to create good content.
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Functionality
Functionality includes all of the interactive
aspects of a web site and includes animation.
The common denominator is that programmers using
the various web programming languages that work
either on a web server or in a web browser
create all of these functions.
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Flash can be used to animate graphics. ASP and
java are programming languages used on the web
server to create sophisticated dynamic web
pages. These pages can work independently but
most commonly with a database to create all of
the features we have come to expect from a
website.
JavaScript is used in browser to create a lot of
cool effects such as swapping images when a
mouse moves over an image, “ticker tapes”, links
changing colors, etc. JavaScript works in the
user’s web browser rather than on the web
server.
There are also other “backend” applications that are transparent to the visitor such as form processing, content management and other administration programs that make it possible for non-programmers to maintain some aspects of the website’s data.
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EPNET look at all these
aspects and analyise all these aspects to ensure
your visitors have the best possible chance of
communicating with you. |
All of these programs have to be integrated into
the HTML code to be used on the webpage.
Usability
Usability is the website viewed from the user’s
point of view and involves mostly testing things
like:
Does the look and feel are actually portraying
the proper image?
Is the navigation is user friendly?
Does the navigation lead the visitor to where
the owner wants them to go?
Does the site load quickly?
Do the applications work properly? |
Bilingual Web Design
EPNET is a Johannesburg web design company and
we are pleased to announce our latest service:
bilingual web design for your company. |
