Web Design

Starting with knotted line, it is important to understand how crucial a good web layout is. This particular program in my opinion is incredibly frustrating as there are no instructions and it does not cooperate as I would like it to. I only barely get an understanding of what they are trying to argue which makes the whole website useless. I found the Freedom’s Ring website slightly more easier to understand as it provided some instruction before launching you into the interactive website. Comparing these to the 8 rules, it is a good example of what is functional and impossible to work with. I feel like a good website is self explanatory and can be navigable without training or assistance. One example that comes to mind is the obvious Facebook. One of the common jokes I hear in regards to Facebook’s design is that in the first week everyone complains when the layout is altered yet no one remembers anything the week after. To me, this is a testimony of a good layout that is easy to adapt to and can be altered when necessary.

The problem with designs is that if they are made too simplistic, the design can be considered ugly and made for children. If the design is too complicated, no on will be able to understand it. Of course no designer is particularly proud of following a set pattern made by a website creator company and therefore many attempt to design there own. The best websites are the most used and are usually shopping websites like Amazon. In fact, I must assume that most shopping websites all have common themes like gender, age, and clothing type divisions along with search ability, store locations, and return policies. With this situation I do not think all of these websites agreed to these categories in a large meeting but I think that happenstance and previous consumer responses have led many companies to adopt the same standards. For this reason feedback is important to designing the ideal website and this same feedback can lead to many similar website designs. That also makes me wonder about copyright. Is it possible for a company or an individual to hold copyright for a specific design or terminology. How specific does it have to be in order to claim it as your own? Either way, the web layout is the main attractor for a website and the thing that keeps people coming back.