Web design encompasses a variety of disciplines and skills in the creation and maintenance of sites on the internet. These skills can be broken down into five key areas: presentation, content, structure, usability, and analytics. These disciplines work together in order to provide the end product of a site – a fully functioning website. The various disciplines of web design encompass web graphic design; web typography; creative design, such as painting and sculpture; user interface (ui) design; and interactivity, which includes search engine optimization and visual design. The interaction area encompasses areas such as web testing, user testing, web server side scripting, and web development.
When looking at web design, it is important to recognise and understand that the way that a website appears to a user is entirely dependent upon the design, style, functionality, and interactivity of the pages that make up the website. In other words, web designers must provide a well-designed and informative website that is not only visually pleasing and informative, but also interactive and usable. As the world becomes more Internet-based, it is increasingly important for businesses to employ web design services to ensure that they are able to remain competitive and to create a thriving business. These services are now able to deliver a range of innovative and complex techniques that are aimed at providing the best user experience and making the website more effective and communicable.
For example, web designers often work with interaction design techniques, such as state-of-the-art interaction technology, user experience research, usability testing, and emotional design. Many website designers also work in graphic design, such as web design, icon design, 2D/3D graphics, and computer aided graphic (CAG) methods. In addition, some web designers also use multimedia, such as flash and animation. All of these techniques combine to provide an effective website with a high degree of interactivity and a large degree of user experience.