Overview of the Basic Web Design Series

by Megan McDermott, 16 December 2006 - 9:48pm

Basic web design is a series of articles meant to help beginning web designers to learn better web design skills.

There are many books and websites that teach HTML but very few that adress the finer points of web design. This series will answer questions such as:

• What is the best process to follow when designing a site?
• How can I design a site that addresses my business objectives?
• How can I make my site easier to use?
• What is the best way to lay out my pages?
• What hosting provider should I use?
• How do I get my site into search engines?
• And many more..

What this series is not

This series will not attempt to teach HTML or CSS or any other web technology or software. There are many other websites, books, and other resources available to learn these things.

Obviously, this is not a series for more advanced web designers. It may, however, be useful for people who are experts in one area but need to learn more about the others. So, for example, you may have 6 years experience in online marketing but need to learn more about designing web pages.

Structure of the series

Basic Web Design will follow a well known design process called ADDIE: Analyse, Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate. This is a simple way of breaking down any development project, and ensuring that designers address all five key steps.

Articles will not be published in a particular order. That is, I may jump around from one section to another in order to address the most serious problems. In an ideal world, you would start at the beginning and proceed through the process step-by-step. In reality, most website designers are working on aspects of all 5 at once.

Authors Needed

If you would like to contribute to this series you are certainly welcome to do so. We are looking for articles that will fit into the structure of this series and will be of strong relevance to beginning web designers. Please use our contribute form to tell us about your article idea or submit a rough draft.