Web Design with HTML and CSS

The goals of web design

Lesson 1, Planning Your Website 11

Defi ning the user experience

When it comes to user interaction, off ering too many options can be just as bad as not

off ering enough. If there are multiple pathways available to the user, it is the designer’s

responsibility to make sure the user doesn’t get lost. The entire sum of a user’s interactions

with a website can be called the user experience.

The focus on the user experience diff erentiates websites from printed products more than

anything else. This job is so important that there are web professionals called information

architects. Information architecture is defi ned as the structure of a website and its pages: how

the site and the site navigation are organized. In its strictest form, information architecture is

not concerned with issues such as color, type, and graphics. In larger design agencies, it is not

uncommon to have an information architect collaborating with the designers, especially at

the beginning stages of designing a website.

Designers need to think like information architects to be eff ective. The designs need to

provide the best structure allowing users to get the information they want. For online stores,

they should provide the most effi cient way to allow a user to put an object in a shopping cart

and make a purchase. Designers must fully comprehend the web as a medium and understand

its rules and possibilities regarding visual design and text.

User-centered design

It can be diffi cult to describe how a web designer works because the level of involvement in

a project can vary, from developing a project on her own, to being part of a large team in an

advertising agency. However, in all cases, the designer’s goal is to create sites that serves the

needs of the users. The following section outlines the planning process so that you clearly

understand what the client wants before you begin.

The stages of the planning process

The stages of the planning process can generally be defi ned as:

• Defi ning goals and strategy


• Research


• Information architecture


• Sketching


• Wireframes


• Mockups

You’ll learn more about each of these stages in this chapter.