Web Sites Ethiopia

Graphic design for the Web requires an understanding of the goals and tradeoffs involved in the development of a relevant graphical display. It should support the user and facilitate communication of the intended message. Be sure to keep in mind the following ideas when designing your pages.

Practical Tradeoffs
Graphic design for the Web is not just about aesthetics. Rather, it is a tradeoff that must be resolved by taking into account the site’s goals, the schedule and technological constraints, and the aesthetics of the web site.

Use-Based Presentation
Graphic design provides a visual way to manage how people interact with information. Through a combination of understanding user needs and effectively presenting available content, graphic design can be used to support and structure the display to enable communication. A designer should determine the layout based on the goals of the users.

Supporting Meaningful Content
The effective communication of information lies at the heart of successful web design. Part of this communication is portraying and supporting ideas through graphic design. In and of itself, graphic design cannot solve all of your problems.

If the proper content isn’t there, a well-designed graphical page will do little to support the user. However, graphic design can provide very strong support for a well constructed message.

Establishing the Design Parameters
Several factors influence your major design decisions. As early on as possible, you need to determine what visual materials are available to use within the site, the style of the site, and the scope of the site.

Gathering Relevant Materials
Start by gathering as much information as you can about the given organization. It is your goal to uncover what is needed to make a successful site. While this varies according to your relation with the client, the Web Site Materials Request Form (download from http://www.mkp.com/uew/) can serve as a useful way to gather information from you client.

Be sure to gather all materials that your client currently uses in marketing, promotion, and public relations. Even pieces they no longer use can be useful in giving you a feel for the company as well as for understanding styles they no longer consider suitable or pleasing.

Be sure to mark up materials they like and want to emulate, as well as materials they dislike and don’t ever want to see again! Often you can learn as much from materials they dislike as from materials they like.

The Web Site Materials Request Form, or a similar form, can be used to remind clients of everything that might be of use to the designer in the early stages of design. Send this form to your clients when the project begins.

This will help facilitate the gathering of information needed before designing the first mockups. Even if you are meeting with the clients for an initial design meeting, such a form can be useful for preparing them to have everything ready for the meeting and will facilitate a quick start.

Early reminders for such items as accreditation seals and membership logos are often valuable to a web design project because such details can easily be forgotten until the late stages or even until after the launch.
 

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