Web design is more than pretty graphics
Most graphic and print designers excel at what they do, yet relatively few of them excel at creating usable and accessible web sites - the worlds of print and web are two vastly different disciplines, requiring totally different approaches in both design and execution.
“The web is not the same as print design, print is not the same as web design”
Very often, graphic designers who build web sites often fall foul of several bad practices:
- Image intensive pages (slow loading times, wasted bandwidth)
- Text as images (poor accessibility)
- Inflexible page layouts (unlike print the web is not fixed canvas)
- Poor usability (little knowledge of user interfaces)
- Terrible coding (usually as a result of using default Dreamweaver or Photoshop code)
- Little or no knowledge of web standards and sematic HTML
- Designed to “look good” rather than for the visitor
- Poor search engine visibility
Imagery is still important
Of course, graphics, photos and other images do play an important role on any web site, whether it’s a logo, product image, icon, or a decorative element, but every image should add value to a page - if it doesn’t serve a useful purpose you don’t need it!
“The web is primarily a text based medium that also happens to support display of images and other media”
When you visit a web page more often than not you go there to read and not to look at snazzy Photoshopped graphics. In this sense any image that is not part of the content can be a barrier to the visitor, typical examples are often seem in premade templates where form is given precedence over function.
Look before you leap
Of course every client wants a nice looking site, but always always remember the needs of the sites visitors. Having the most wonderful graphical interface for your site may look good to you, but if it’s not user friendly, accessible, takes an age to load on dial-up, and not search engine friendly it could do your business more harm than good.
The art of designing for the web is much more than simply creating a graphical design in Photoshop. It’s worth bearing in mind that many of todays leading “web designers” are not graphic designers but are experts in usability, accessibility, user interfaces, HTML markup and Cascading Style Sheets.
The moral of the story: choose a web designer not a graphic designer!
Share |
