Thanks
for reading this. This piece will make sense to you irrespective of your
background –be it tech savvy, tech enthusiast or just a tech user. However,
this piece will be useful to you if you are a web developer that needs a bit of
web design polishing, or a ‘baby’ web designer. Do not be embarrassed by the
qualifying word: ‘baby’. We are all babies in the ever evolving tech world;
some babies are just older than others. You get the gist? Ok, let’s move on.
Just
as it is experienced when building houses, constructing web sites need some
pre-design steps that MUST conform to standard guideline principles. Have you
heard about Jacob Nielsen, Ben Sheneiderman, Kent Norman and Catherine Plaisant?
These are ‘gurus’ in human computer interaction field. They have worked relentlessly
in bringing some standard design guides to the fore. We will be discussing them
and their works sooner or later.
Firstly,
as a web designer, you must not forget that you are designing for your user,
and not for yourself. So, get a design brief! Here, the user or the person you
are designing for gives tips of what s/he is expecting to be the functionalities of
the web site.
Just
as this:
 |
| Photo Credit: O'Reilly Media |
Secondly,
you must highlight the number of pages to be contained in your web site, and
draw its Information Architecture. Yes, you got the word: INFORMATION
ARCHITECTURE (IA). Just like a builder must not start dredging house
foundation, and erecting its wall without a blue print. It is suicidal to start
coining those html tags, and CSS codes without IA.
Just
as this:
 | |
| (c) Semiu Akanmu 2013 |
I
understand some web developers are too fixated with their coding prowess and
jump the gun. It is not always the best. IA serves as blueprint for your
website –an ultimate guide- especially when you have bulk of pages to design.
It also aids your sense of designing the navigation routes among the pages.
So,
Design Your Information Architecture (IA) Before Coining Those HTML Tags
You
might need this book as an eye opener to the world of web design.
You
can get it here as open source material.
If
your internet facility is not reliable in taking you through this download
journey, kindly drop your email. Till next time, Cheers!!
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