ICTWEB505: Principles of Web Design and Development

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ICTWEB505 - DEVELOP COMPLEX
WEB PAGE LAYOUTS
WRITTEN ASSESSMENT

Task 4 – Knowledge Test
Explain the principles of web site design
Ans. Designing a web site is a crucial part of the overall development of the website. Designing
a website include designing layout, selection, and designing of graphics and content production.
Designing part can be considered as a subset of the overall website development process.
Designing involves the use of HTML and CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) or use of templates for
website design. Designing graphics work on designing the images for the web site. In order to
design an exceptional web site, the web design needs to follow some principles (McConnell,
2018). The principles for web site design are:
 Navigability
Navigability for different web pages of the web site should be easy and the links must be
self-describing. The designer should include the navigators in the header and the footer of the
web page. To make the navigation of the visitor more precise the designer can also use
breadcrumbs and search box.
 Consistency
This principle says that the designer should maintain consistency across all the web pages of
the web site. Maintaining similar consistency according to the information a particular web
page is providing is also a good practice.
 Visual Hierarchy
The elements of the web site should be arranged in such a manner so that the visitor can
search the desired element easily and faster.
 Accessibility
The web site should be accessible across multiple devices available in the market. The web
site design should be responsive and compatible according to the user’s device size and type.
 Simplicity
Simplicity is one of the important principles which the web site designer must keep in mind
while designing a web site. Simplicity increases the usability of the web site and help the
visitor to collect the desired information easily.
 User-Centricity
This principle focus on providing user centric experience to all the visitors of the web site.
The web site must be design in such a manner so that it provide high importance to each and
every visitor of the web site.
 Conventionality
This principle focuses on following the basic convention in designing the web site like
placing navigation bar in the header, making the web site logo clickable and placing it at top
left, etc.
 Credibility
This principle focus on conveying the credibility using clear and specific statements. Gaining
trust of the visitors or users through use of different techniques and strategies is the main

focus of this principle. Example: Providing all business rules and policies in clear and
specific manner and covering all the points which can clear all the queries of the user.
Describe and apply the following in web site design.
Ans.
 Hypertext markup language (HTML) and extensible hypertext markup language (XHTML)
HTML is a Markup Language. It is a base coding language for creating web pages. It is
considered as building block for web site creation. This language is understood by all the
web browsers used today. HTML language is a standard which is universally accepted. It
narrates different elements of the web page to the browsers. It is a tag based languages to
define different elements of the web page like title, body, header, footer, list, paragraph, etc.
(Morris, 2018)
XHTML can be defined as language of between two languages which are HTML and XML
(Extensible Markup Language). It was developed to take the place of HTML. XHTML can
perform all the features that HTML can perform and establish firm rules for the creation of
perfect web code.
 Cascading style sheet (CSS): CSS is a styling language (formally stylesheet language). It is
used to describe the presentation or layout of HTML document (web page). It defines the
color, size, appearance, font-style etc.
 Hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP): HTTP is a stateless protocol. It is basically an
application layer communication protocol. It enables communication between different
clients and servers on the web. It helps different clients or a client and server to communicate
in a request-response cycle. The client sends the HTTP request message and the server
respond back to this request with HTTP response (Podila, 2013).
 Techniques to correct browser incompatibilities
 Validate the web site code with the standards provided by the W3C to check that the
code is compliant to standard.
 The web designer can use the framework to design and develop web site because the
framework will take care about the incompatibilities.
 Testing is one of the basic techniques. Test the web site code on all browsers (Jones
2018).

Outline World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards, and explain their
application to web design.
Ans. W3C standards are technical coding principles and guidelines for developing web
applications. The principles defined by W3C help the developers and designers to create web
application for different kind of devices. Some of the web standards are:
HTML and CSS: The HTML provides the base structure to the web pages of the web site. The
CSS describe the layout or presentation of the elements or tags of the HTML.
JavaScript Standard: It is a language used to make the web site dynamic in nature. This
language use events as triggers to make the web site dynamic.
Accessibility: W3C provides such standards that are useful for web developers to make the web
site for different users.
Graphics, Audio and Video: W3C provides standards and specification to embed different
audio, video, images, and other graphics in the web page.

References
Jones, S. 2018. 10 ways to avoid cross-browser compatibility issues. [Online]. Available at:
https://www.creativebloq.com/advice/10-ways-to-avoid-cross-browser-compatibility-issues
(Accessed: 12 March 2019)
McConnell, M. 2018. 9 Principles of good web design. [Online]. Available at:
https://www.feelingpeaky.com/9-principles-of-good-web-design/ (Accessed: 12 March 2019)
Morris, S. 2018. Everything You Need to Know About HTML. [Online]. Available at:
https://skillcrush.com/2012/04/02/html/ (Accessed: 12 March 2019)
Podila P. 2013. HTTP: The Protocol Every Web Developer Must Know – Part 1. [Online].
Available at: https://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/http-the-protocol-every-web-developer-must-
know-part-1--net-31177 (Accessed: 12 March 2019)