The Web was never intended to be a design medium. HTML (the language of the Web) was written to be a display language that would present differently on different machines and operating systems. It is a language that can be customized to the end-user and/or the browser’s liking. For designers who are accustomed to creating fixed, final results, the Web can be a challenge to their design intentions.
Designers generally use Web-authoring software, which emulates the page layout (WYSIWYG) experience while writing the HTML code needed to produce the page on the Web. It is incumbent on the designer to understand HTML and other programming languages in order to know what is possible and what is not, knowing what can go wrong and using the measures within our control to avoid the pitfalls of the medium. Understanding the limitations and the opportunities inherent in Web-site construction is critical to a successful Web-site design.
There are many considerations that influence designer choices when designing for the Web. Understanding the differences between print and Web design helps clients and designers work together to create effective solutions faster.
The printed page has fixed dimensions. Designing for the Web is different, because the work you’re publishing goes to people with different computer screens, different operating systems and different browsers. All those variables affect the page that reaches the viewer
All art prepared for the Web uses the RGB (red/green/blue) color palette since that is how monitor colors are represented. The infamous 216 Web-safe colors are supplemented with millions in continuous-tone jpeg images, but the Web-safe colors have to be used in HTML text.
Print designers think in CMYK (the on-press ink values cyan/magenta/yellow/black) for continuous-tone images and all elements of 4-color printing. If a project allows for five or six colors, then Pantone-specified inks can be used. Otherwise, if the project is strictly 4-color and the designer wants to use a Pantone color, it has to be converted to CMYK.
Monitor color is another nightmare, because color looks different on different monitors and different operating systems. Color on a Windows system is generally a bit darker, but also varies from monitor to monitor. Additionally, a monitor might be a 4-bit, 8-bit or 24-bit color display (the number of colors a system is capable of displaying) set at 256, thousands or millions of colors with resolutions of 640x480 to 1280x1024.
So, what’s a designer to do? We view our work on different systems and monitors then pick something that is pleasing on the majority. Maybe that s why there are so many sites with white, grey or black backgrounds. Real frustration sets in when trying to represent a client’s corporate color. To match color, the best solution is to use an image that has been color emulated in Photoshop or other software.
Typography and HTML
Good typography is often a key element in print design. But again, HTML is not a design tool and it has limited type alignment capabilities. Left, center or justify along with indenting lists are about all the science community needed for their technical writing. Today, using Cascading Style Sheets allows us to control font sizes, leading and other styling, but not to the degree that we can in page-layout software. The choice of fonts is still limited to what fonts might be in the viewer’s computer system so presenting a stylish font requires it be created as artwork, making it unreadable to robots. Since the goal is to deliver keyword-rich content, using art for copy is a limited solution for typography.
Images prepared for the Web are 72 ppi (pixels per inch) while a high-quality printed page requires 300 dpi (dots per inch). Even at 72 ppi, Web images need to be compressed to download quickly, and different compression techniques produce different results in visual quality. How the designer handles this leap is evidence of discretion and experience.
Each browser interoperates the visual content of a Web page differently. This is not as big a hurdle as it was in the past as most browsers are W3C standards compliant. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) develops interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines, software and tools) to lead the Web to its full potential.
The lone dissenter to this technological progress is Microsoft Internet Explorer, which after nearly nine years, still doesn’t support the HTML 4 spec properly let alone current standards. This fragile browser continues to frustrate site designers and engineers, because there is construction/functionality that just will not work on IE. However, another point of view might be, if it works in IE it will work in any browser. Unfortunately, this is a big hurdle to overcome in many Web site design projects because of the excessive limitations IE imposes on designer/programmer choices.
Some Web-site designers have chosen to create Web sites using their full potential with advice to the viewer. “Our site is best viewed using Firefox”.
The majority of Web viewers do not have DSL, but maybe your market does so you won’t have to limit your design to lower accessibility. However, for those companies offering products or services to the broader public, accessibility should be a priority. Here I’m referring to users with less sophisticated systems and connections as well as users with disabilities.
Creativity is the essential ingredient in all Imagine, Inc., projects. But visual appeal is only part of what we consider good Web-site design. Just as important as a great look, is your Web site’s ease of use. The customer experience of your company Web site should be enhanced by a clear user interface and seamless/creative use of technology.