Web Design & Development |

What is Website Design & Development?

Website Design

Web page design is a process of conceiving, planning, modelling, and execution of electronic media content delivery via Internet in the form of technologies (such as markup languages) suitable for interpretation and display by a web browser or other web-based graphical user interfaces (GUIs).

The intent of web design is to create a web site (a collection of electronic files residing on one or more web servers) that presents content (including interactive features or interfaces) to the end user in the form of web pages once requested. Such elements as text, forms, and bit-mapped images (GIFs, JPEGs, PNGs) can be placed on the page using HTML, XHTML, or XML tags. Displaying more complex media vector graphics, animations, videos, sounds) usually requires plug-ins such as Flash, QuickTime, Java run-time environment, etc. Plug-ins are also embedded into web pages by using HTML or XHTML tags.

Improvements in the various browsers' compliance with W3C standards prompted a widespread acceptance of XHTML and XML in conjunction with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to position and manipulate web page elements. The latest standards and proposals aim at leading to the various browsers' ability to deliver a wide variety of media and accessibility options to the client possibly without employing plug-ins.

Static pages don’t change content and layout with every request unless a human (web master or programmer) manually updates the page.

Dynamic pages adapt their content and/or appearance depending on the end-user’s input or interaction or changes in the computing environment (user, time, database modifications, etc.) Content can be changed on the client side (end-user's computer) by using client-side scripting languages (JavaScript, JScript, Actionscript, media players and PDF reader plug-ins, etc.) to alter elements (DHTML).

Website Development

Web development is a broad term for any activity related to developing a web site for the World Wide Web or an intranet. This can include e-commerce business development, web design, web content development, client-side/server-side scripting, and web server configuration. However, among web professionals, "web development" usually refers only to the non-design aspects of building web sites, e.g. writing markup and coding. Web development can range from developing the simplest static single page of plain text to the most complex web-based internet applications, electronic businesses, or social network services.

For larger businesses and organizations, web development teams can consist of hundreds of people (web developers). Smaller organizations may only require a single permanent or contracting webmaster, or secondary assignment to related job positions such as a graphic designer and/or Information systems technician. Web development may be a collaborative effort between departments rather than the domain of a designated department.

As far as web development tools and platforms are concerned, there are many systems available to the public free of charge to aid in development. A popular example is the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP), which is usually distributed free of charge.

The next generation of web development tools uses the strong growth in LAMP and Microsoft .NET technologies to provide the Web as a way to run applications online. Web developers now help to deliver applications as Web services which were traditionally only available as applications on a desk based computer.
Instead of running executable code on a local computer, users are interacting with online applications to create new content. This has created new methods in communication and allowed for many opportunities to decentralize information and media distribution. Users are now able to interact with applications from many locations, instead of being tied to a specific workstation for their application environment.

Examples of dramatic transformation in communication and commerce led by web development include e-commerce. Online auction sites such as eBay have changed the way consumers consume and purchase goods and services. Online resellers such as Amazon.com and Buy.com (among many, many others) have transformed the shopping and bargain hunting experience for many consumers.

Open source content systems such as Drupal, Typo3, Xoops, and Joomla! have extended web development into new modes of interaction and communication.

Web 2.0

The term "Web 2.0" describes the changing trends in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aim to enhance creativity, communications, secure information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the web. Web 2.0 concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-culture communities and hosted services, such as social-networking sites, video sharing sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies. Although the term suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update to any technical specifications, but rather to changes in the ways software developers and end-users utilize the Web.

Web Site Design

A web site is a collection of information about a particular topic or subject. At Paragon Hi-Tech Solutions designing a web site is defined as the layout and creation of web pages that in turn make up a web site. A web page consists of information for which the web site is developed. A web site might be compared to a book, where each page of the book is a web page.
There are many aspects in this process, and due to the rapid development of the Internet, new aspects constantly emerge. For non-commercial web sites, the goals vary depending on the desired exposure and response. For a commercial web site, the basic aspects of design that Paragon Hi-Tech Solutions consider are:

The content: the substance, and information on the site should be relevant to the site and should target the area of the public that the website is concerned with.
The usability: the site should be user-friendly, with the interface and navigation simple and reliable.
The appearance: the graphics and text should include a single style that flows throughout, to show consistency. The style should be professional, appealing and relevant.
The visibility: the site must also be easy to find via most, if not all, major search engines and advertisement media.

Website Planning

Before creating and uploading your website, we take the time to plan exactly what is needed in your website. We thoroughly consider your audience or target market, as well as defining the purpose and deciding what content will be developed.

Purpose

It is important to define the purpose of your website as one of the first steps in the planning process. We help you develop a purpose statement focused on what your website will achieve and what your end-users will get from it. A clearly defined purpose will help you & us with the rest of your planning process as the audience is identified and the content of the site is developed. Setting short and long term goals for your website will help make the purpose clear and plan for the future when expansion, modification, and improvement will take place. Goal-setting practices and measurable objectives can be identified to track the progress of your site development and determine success.

Audience

Defining the audience is a key step in the website planning process. These people will be viewing the website for a specific reason and it is important to know exactly what they are looking for when they visit the site. A clearly defined purpose or goal of your site as well as an understanding of what visitors want to do or feel when they come to your site will help you to identify the target audience.

Taking into account the characteristics of your audience will allow an effective website to be created that will deliver the desired content to the target audience.

Content

Collecting a list of the necessary content then organizing it according to the audience's needs is a key step in our website planning. It is a good idea to test the content and purpose on a focus group and compare the offerings to the audience needs. The next step in Paragon Hi-Tech Solution's development process is to organize the basic information by putting together the content and organizing it according to user needs.

Compatibility and restrictions

Because of the different market shares of modern browsers (depending on your target market) such as Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox, the compatibility of your website with the viewers can be restricted. That's why we develop websites to the W3C standard which ensures maximum compatibility for your site with all standards based web browsers.
Many website incompatibilities go unnoticed by other designers and unreported by the users. However the impact of bad compatibility is that the user will not return to your site and your profile will be damaged as a consequence.

Planning documentation

We use documentation to plan the site while taking into account the purpose, audience and content, so as to design the site structure, content and interactions that are most suitable for your website. Documentation may be considered a prototype for your website – a model which allows the website layout to be reviewed, resulting in suggested changes, improvements and/or enhancement. This review process increases the likelihood of the success of your website. As part of the development process, we offer you opportunities to review the development of your site to ensure maximum satisfaction with your end product

Our Client Side Coding Skills

AJAX Provides new methods of using Javascript, PHP and other languages to improve the user experience.
Flash / Adobe Flash Player is a ubiquitous client-side platform ready for Rich Internet application.
Javascript. Formally called EMCAScript, Javascript is a ubiquitous client side programming tool.
Microsoft Silverlight Microsoft's browser plugin that enables animation, vector graphics and high-definition video playback, programmed using XAML and .NET programming languages.

Our Server Side Coding Skills

Active Server Pages/ASP (Microsoft proprietary)
ColdFusion (Adobe proprietary, formerly Macromedia)
Common Gateway Interface / CGI and/or Perl (open source)
Java (programming language)/Java, e.g. J2EE or WebObjects
Lotus Domino
PHP (open source)
Python (programming language)/ Python, e.g. Django (web framework) (open source)
Ruby programming language / Ruby, e.g. Ruby on Rails (open source)
Smalltalk e.g. Seaside, AIDA/Web
Server-Side JavaScript, e.g. Aptana Jaxer,
Websphere(IBM proprietary)
.NET (Microsoft proprietary)

LAMP is our preferred development platform; however lesser known languages like Ruby and Python are often paired with the database server; MySQL (the M in LAMP). Below are example of other databases currently in wide use on the web. For instance some developers prefer a LAPR(Linux/Apache/PostrgeSQL/Ruby on Rails) setup for development.

Database Technology

Apache Derby
DB2 (IBM proprietary)
Firebird
Microsoft SQL Server
MySQL
Oracle Database
PostgreSQL
SQLite

Our web developers also have interdisciplinary skills / roles, including:

Graphic design / web design
Information architecture and copywriting/copyediting with web usability, accessibility and search engine optimization in mind
Project management, QA and other aspects common to IT development in general

Security Considerations

Our Web development takes into account many security considerations, such as data entry error checking through forms, filtering output, and encryption. Malicious practices such as SQL injection can be executed by users with ill intent yet with only primitive knowledge of web development as a whole. Not only this, but scripts can be exploited to grant unauthorized access to malicious users trying to collect information such as email addresses, passwords and protected content like credit card numbers.

Some of this is dependent on the server environment (most commonly Apache or Microsoft IIS) on which the scripting language, such as PHP, Ruby, Python, Perl or ASP is running, and therefore is not necessarily down to the web developer themselves to maintain. However at Paragon Hi-Tech Solutions stringent testing of web applications before public release is encouraged to prevent such exploits from occurring.

We keep our web server safe from intrusion using techniques often called Server Port Hardening. Many technologies come into play when we are keeping our client's information on the internet safe when it is transmitted from one location to another. For instance Secure Socket Layer Encryption (SSL) Certificates are issued by certificate authorities to help prevent internet fraud. Our developers can employ different forms of encryption when transmitting and storing sensitive information. A basic understanding of information technology security concerns is part of our web developer's knowledge.

Because new security holes are found in web applications even after testing and launch, security patch updates are frequent for our widely used applications. It is often the job of our web developers to keep your applications up to date as security patches are released and new security concerns are discovered.

Technology overview

The sometimes complex and continually evolving technology infrastructure of Web 2.0 includes server-software, content-syndication, messaging-protocols, standards-oriented browsers with plugins and extensions, and various client-applications. The differing, yet complementary approaches of such elements provide our Web 2.0 sites with information-storage, creation, and giving out challenges and capabilities that go beyond what was formerly expected in the environment of the so-called "Web 1.0".

Our Web 2.0 website solultions typically include some of the following features/techniques

“Search: the ease of finding information through keyword search which makes the platform valuable.
Links: guides to important pieces of information. The best pages are the most frequently linked to.
Authoring: the ability to create constantly updating content over a platform that is shifted from being the creation of a few to being the constantly updated, interlinked work. In wikis, the content is iterative in the sense that the people undo and redo each other's work. In blogs, content is cumulative in that posts and comments of individuals are accumulated over time.
Tags: categorization of content by creating tags that are simple, one-word descriptions to facilitate searching and avoid rigid, pre-made categories.