What is web design?

Web design is used as a general term to describe all the different tasks involved in creating a web site such graphic design, information architecture and programming in various languages of code. It may concerns also the content management and its visual presentation, the interaction design, the layout and the colors used in your web site and it may involve both the aesthetics and the mechanics of a web site's operation, although primarily it focuses on the look and feel of the web site - the design elements.
A few of the features incorporated in webb design or web production are:

• Font and colour selection
• Graphic design and animation creation
• Content creation
• Navigation layout
• e-commerce development

Read more about web design on Brightlemon's blog web design section!

Benefits of web design

There is an incredible amount of benefits to having a website. If your business is not tuned in to the world wide web, it is a safe bet that your competition probably is.

Here a short list of the main features involved in a good web site design:

Marketing

• Various options as to how you choose to represent your company to the public
• Advertisement of the products/services your company provides
• Search engine optimization

Communication

• Customer service- ability to keep up with customers/clients/employees 24/7, 365 days a year at almost no cost. Also, common inquiries are avoided by having the information provided on your site
• The number of people available to your entity once established on the web, has the potential to reach millions

Selling online

• e-commerce
• Security and ease of purchase are very important and always a concern. How professional your web site looks can be a facilitating factor on whether customers want to trust you with their information
• Your store is always open...always

However keep in mind that not all web sites are created equal. Brightlemon, with its award winning designs originates unique and customized web sites for various different kinds of businesses

Web 2.0

Definition of 'Web 2.0' from Wikipedia.

Mashups

The definition of a ‘web mashup’ is a website or web application that uses content from more than one source to construct an entirely new service. Any content that is used in a mashup is usually sourced from a 3rd party; this is achieved by the use of a public interface or API. It is considered that projects that do not use private interfaces are mashups. Apart from using third parties, there are also other ways to source content, these include web services and web feeds such as RSS.

Example:

Map Runner

Various users of mashups create projects that are useful to the public. These mashups often use popular sources for content such as Google Maps or some type of shopping cart service. Hosting is also a part of incorporating mashups to a web site. Therefore, if hosting is going to be utilised, knowing if the host supports server-side languages is key.

Definition of 'Mashup' from Wikipedia.

Web services

A web service is a software system that is designed to support computer interaction and a way of integrating web-based applications over a network. They are executed on a remote system that is hosting the requested services. All web services will make themselves available over the internet and utilise a standardised XML messaging system, which is used to encode any communication to a web service. Apart from XML, web services also use SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI open standards.

Many software applications that are written in different programming languages are able to use these web services to exchange data over computer networks like internet. Overall, web services are web API’s that are accessible over any given network like the internet and are not tied to only one operating system or programming language. For instance, pearl can communicate with Java, and UNIX applications can communicate with windows applications.

Most web services are used for the benefit or businesses to communicate with their clients as well as other businesses and allow communication of data except the disclosure of their IT systems.

Features of a web service include:

• Security
• Reliability
• Reliable Messaging
• Transaction

Definition of 'Web Service' fromWikipedia.

API’s

API stands for Application Program Interface. An API is a collection or routines, protocols and tools for developing software applications or some other control program such as a database management system. A good API makes it easy to develop a program via the provision of all the right building blocks and is implemented by writing function calls in the program. Operating systems such as Windows provide their own API facilities so that developers can write applications that are consistent with the environment of the operating system. However, not all companies make their API’s available to the public because this allows them to have some control over who can write applications.

API can be used and defined in two ways:

• . A sole entry position such as a function, method or procedure.
• 2. An interface incorporating classes or collections of related procedures or functions.

Definition of 'API' from Wikipedia.

Here is a list of several Web 2.0 sites:

Mashable

Delicious

Digg

Flikr

Myspace

YouTube

• Content management case studies
• Accessibility
• E-commerce
• Web development and programming