On many designer community websites, I see discussions about design process. For web design it would appear that there are different approaches, and the one you take normally probably comes from your background. There are pros and cons to each, I think.

Web Designers

The common approach that I see discussed with designers is the Visual Design first, then fit the site to the visual. The designer either sketches out the design on paper and transfers it to Photoshop, or does it straight in Fireworks and/or Photoshop. Once the visual layout is deemed suitable, the design is then ‘cut up’ and made into html code or fitted to the blog or CMS theme.

Web Developers

This group comes from programmers and system administrators putting together websites. Their approach is different; design the html first (or the programming that will output the html), then fit styling and graphical elements to it.

You can usually recognize the difference in the end result. The designer’s website will look as if it was a poster or other printed media, one big flowing design, all the graphics integrated nicely. Flash sites also fall under this category. If there are flaws to this approach, it’s that the designs are sometimes too strict to allow changing needs for content, and in extreme cases the content takes such a back seat to the design that the whole purpose of the site becomes diminished. The developer’s site on the other hand will have a different flavour; the design will look ‘cut up’, as though different elements were simply stuck here and there. The visuals take a back seat to the content. Quite often the result is perfectly functional, however in some cases the graphics and styling are poor enough that they take away from the purpose of the site.

Me?

I was starting to wonder if I had been doing it wrong when I see the different processes discussed, my approach is neither one and both at the same time. Whenever possible, I design the html document first, without any graphics or styling. Although plain looking it should be quite functional, make sense, and be totally useable. At that point I make the design, taking into account the content (how many pages, purposes of different pages, size, etc) as part of the decisions of the design itself. Many times I have to go back to the original step and make changes, because it just isn’t working out in the design. Quite often this process results in going back and forth between the html, css and graphic steps, hence my ‘holistic’ approach to design. The process is no different whether it’s a straight static html site, or based on a CMS or blog site.

Web design is not graphic design, it’s not programming, it is a different animal altogether. You are designing an electronic document, which may or may not have dynamically generated components as well.  The big challenge of web design is to make an accessible document that will be logical in it’s presentation across different computers, and lately other devices as well such as hand helds. The flow of information must be such that the end user is at no time confused about where they are and what they can do. Your user should know within 4 seconds of getting to your site who you are, what you do, and how to use your web site. Your visual presentation should be professional and a representation of your company, and the whole thing, content, styling and presentation should work as a single harmonious entity in the end - IMHO.