Web design, as a complete task, includes some aspects from each of the following traditional roles:
- Producer
- Usability designer
- Graphic designer
- Writer
- Editor
- Software engineer
- Software tester
In a company environment, there might sometimes be different people filling some of those roles. However, as amateur web designers you won't have that luxury.
Producer
A Web designer needs to decide what information will be provided in a Web site based on what the users are likely to want.
Usability designer
Web sites need to be extremely easy to navigate and understand. Users will not accept a "learning curve" or a detailed instruction manual (as they might with complex computer software, for example) just to browse a web site.
Graphic designer
Web sites need to be laid out in a way that pleases the eye, is easy to read, and emphasises the important parts of information.
Writer
Almost all Web sites contain text of some sort. In order to give a good impression, this text must be reasonably well-written and easily readable.
Editor
As well as writing text for a site, Web designers need to check the text to make sure that there are no errors or inconsistencies. Sometimes the amount of text may need to be reduced.
Software engineer
Even Web sites that don't involve any software still benefit from some basic software engineering practices, such as modularisation. (More interactive Web sites often need software to be specially written, but that's beyond the scope of this course.)
Software testers
It's not good enough to create a Web site. The site has to actually work. Not only that, but it must work at least on all common browsers. It must continue to work, even after small changes are made... The task is less difficult than general software testing, but can still be challenging.
