Web design principles are universal and often derive from other art forms. So what should be the elements of design especially for the web? One must realize that the web-based environment requires unique needs to be considered before starting the design process.

The basic question web designers have to decide at the outset for a website is whether to go for a fixed or a percentage wise fluid based designing. How do we choose what type of design is better? Well it again will depend on three important factors.

• One must know the user well
• Understand the intended audience
• Find what the client expects from the website

Fixed width means a certain pixel width that could be of standard 800px wide. With a higher resolution monitor the web page will retain the same width. Thus it is usually used whenever the web pages have to be consistent or will have many pictures with less text. When it is a fluid width design the width of the web page expands according to the width of the web browser. Portions of the page will need to expand so that the page fills the width of the screen. It is best suited for web sites with side columns or E-commerce web sites and web sites with a lot of content and those that do not require having an exact alignment.

Other factors to be considered during the web design include,

• Using web safe colors
• Web safe fonts for text
• Type of graphics compression
• Accessibility
• Usability

Managed Outsource Solutions (MOS) is a US based web design and development company that offers a wide range of services including e-commerce web design, realtor web design, small business web design, law firm website designing, mortgage website, with integrated SEO (search engine optimization) for clients in the US, Canada the UK and Australia.

Labels: online web design, web design principles, web designing