Elements of Web Design
Designing a website
If you’ve designed a website, chances are there was a lot of consideration and deliberation on how the site should be laid out. With this blog post I give an overview of some of the fundamental aspects of designing a site, along with the resources you will need to manipulate those aspects.
When thinking about what colors to use on your site, referring to a color wheel is an extremely useful tool. Knowing how colors interact with each other helps you decide which colors to use on your site. Its also important to know the capabilities and limitation of the range of colors available to you as a developer. If you would like to learn more about color, explore the links to the right.
Layout
Layout is important for leading your viewer through your site. When thinking about how people look your site, you would like for it to be clean and easy to navigate. This doesn’t mean that you have to sacrifice layout over aesthetic. The layout of a site is the scaffolding that the design is built around. This means that both should be considered when thinking about how you would like the user to navigate through your site.
Media
Media is a blanket term that I’m using for pretty much anything that communicates an idea without text. This could be audio, video, or pictures. Its important to know how to incorporate and manipulate media on your site in order to keep the viewer interested in the subject of the site. We’ve all heard the term “a picture is worth a thousand words” and there is a lot of truth to that. The media in your post goes a long way to give your viewer information about what your site is about.
Final Thoughts
Hopefully, this has given you some resources that will help you when designing your site. If you have any questions or suggestions, please let us know at wpress@uark.edu.