Let’s explain a few things first
The internet
The internet is a gigantic global network of millions and billions of computers and other devices that connect to the internet.
Your computer connects to an ISP (internet service provider), then the ISP may connect to a larger network.
A “backbone” is connecting many networks in a region together through fiber optic cables. The company who runs the backbone has a POP(point of presence), where local users can connect. All of these backbones connect via NAPs(network access points) around the world, which lets people from all over the world connect with each other.
You get an IP(internet protocol)-address when you connect to your ISP. These consist of four numbers divided in octets (the number in binary form – 4 times 8 numbers). Websites that you connect to also have IP-addresses, but to simplify things the IP-numbers are mapped to text names via a DNS-server(domain name system). This lets you connect to a page like www.noroff.no via that name instead of using the IP-address to get there.
HTML
HTML or Hyper Text Markup Language is the “computer language” used in internet documents intended to be viewed in a web browser.
HTML describes the structure of the document and consists of HTML-elements which makes things such paragraphs and images display in a web page appear. You can also embed a scripting language such as JavaScript, or use a CSS that defines the look and layout of the page.
Browser
A web browser is a software application that locates, retrieves and displays content from the internet. The web browser connects to a web server, and the web server sends the content back to the browser.
Search engine
A search engine has three primary functions: crawl, index and rank.
The search engine sends out lots and lots of spiders or crawlers(“robots”) to gather information from webpages, this information is then stored in an index, a database with the most useful information they found. The search engine then ranks everything that is the most relevant to the search query.
Questions to ask in a briefing process
It’s very important to get the most important and relevant info from your client, before you even start to design the page. This information will inform a lot of decisions you make when starting to construct a web page.
The 10 questions we got from the lesson were:
- What kind of visitors are you expecting on your website?
- Who are your competitors and how do you differ from them?
- What actions do you want visitors to take on the site?
- What is your deadline for completing the site? How big is the budget?
- What features should be used on your website? (This includes things like contact forms, pictures, videos, etc.)
- Please list the names of three sites that you like and explain what you like about them.
- Do you have any colour preferences? What should the look and feel for the website be?
- Who will be the contact person for this project?
- What do you NOT want on your site in terms of text, content, colour and graphic elements?
- Who will be responsible for maintaining the website? Will the person have the time and skills to do so?
We were going to add 10 questions to these, which was a bit hard, because I feel the most important questions have been covered, but here’s my try:
- What is the message, and the big draw for the main page?
- How often will the contact person be available for this project?
- Do you have your own photographs, or do you need us to provide them?
- What are your company’s core values? What do you want to express?
- Do you need more than one main page to convey and separate your information?
- Do you have a brand style guide for the company?
- Do you need a blog or news stream?
- Do you need new e-mail addresses along with the website?
- Do you need a chat function or contact form, and do you have employees to maintain either of these.
- What else do you want from this process? Is there something you would like to ask me?
We were asked to create the ULTIMATE list from these 20 questions, and I’m not really sure how to do this. I find that the list we were provided with would serve as my ultimate list, so I have chosen those questions for my list.
Examples of good and bad web design
A great webpage should be easy to navigate, and it should make use of white space, free from clutter. I find that most good webpages are grid based, or that they look like modified wordpress pages.
Great web design
Clean design. Lots of white space and large images. Easy to navigate and gets the point across.
Pleasing to look at. Relevant information on front page. Big search box.
Clean grid based design. Easy to navigate and order movie tickets.
Great use of white space. Easy to navigate. Neat grid system. Categories on front page that are also smartly placed.
Great use of photography to present their products. Font goes well with their style. Clean, uncluttered page.
While not very tidy or clean, I find that it presents the news in a very good way. The only page I use to get my entertainment news.
Okay, so I’m kind of cheating with this one. This is the organization I work for, and we just got new web pages. We have similar campaign pages with the same design, where some of the information is hard to find, but this is one of the better ones.
Clean, stylish, minimalism. Easy to navigate.
This is how I would like more news sites to present their articles. Clean, neat, pleasing to look at and easy to navigate.
Clean site with consistent use of quality images that present their brand. Looks similar to the H&M page, but I guess this is what happens when you use minimalism and grid systems.
Bad web design. Bad!
This page mostly functions as a blog. Boring layout and too dark background. It aims to be “retro”, but the result is retro in an (probably) unintended way.
Difficult to find the info you need and the products you search for. I’ve tried to use this company for my work, but I turned to other companies for similar services. Truly a testament to how bad design makes you lose potential clients.
Where do I even begin. Try to navigate this page! It looks like their old physical product catalogs, which is fun at first, but it just doesn’t work.
This is… Yeah, just look for yourself. Clutter. Clutter everywhere. The 90’s are back!
A website from the late 90’s and early 00’s and it truly shows.
Leather texture is distracting.
I wish I could tell you what’s wrong with this design, but I don’t really know other than I don’t find it appealing at all. The search function is randomly placed in between articles. The ‘used car’ part to the right side kind of blends in with the background. Could probably use more contrast.
I didn’t realize that I didn’t like the design of VG before I visited the Vårt Land page. It’s a grid system, but the page tries to emulate the tabloid style from their physical newspaper. It’s not very bad, but the grid is still kind of messy and a random mix of wildly different articles and ads.
Wow… This looks just like the pages I made when I was a kid… In Notepad. Just see for yourself. The info is there. In your face! The information needs restructuring and the page needs a completely different design.
I had to search for bad webdesign to find this one, but it truly is, and they still haven’t changed it. Here you’re treated to a huge load of information on the front page. There’s nothing that leads me to where they want me to go. It’s just a mess.
My Reflective Journal 
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