Introduction

A website is a collection of information about a particular topic or subject. Designing a website is defined as the arrangement and creation of web pages that in turn make up a website. A web page consists of information for which the website is developed. On a different perspective, a webpage can be compared to a page in a book and a website to a book.

Moving to each, in detail, the web page consists of text and images. It can also be said that a web page is similar to a file which has all the data. To support the data or information the images are added to the web page. To be more technical the first page of a website is known as Home Page. Each and every page in a website is a HTML file which has its own web address. Web design involves some aspects or points to be remembered which will take the website to the people.

History

Let's take a tour back in time and see how the concept of web design came into being.

Tim Berners Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web published a website in August 1991, making him also the first web designer. He was the first to use hypertext with an existing email link.

Early on, websites were written in basic HTML, a markup language giving websites basic structure (headings and paragraphs), and the ability to link using hypertext. This was new and different to existing forms of communication - users could easily open other pages using browsers.

Present

As the Web and web design progressed, the markup language, known as Hypertext Mark-up Language or HTML became more complex and flexible. Things like tables, which could be used to display tabular information, were soon subverted for use as invisible layout devices. With the advent of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), table based layout is increasingly regarded as outdated. Database integration technologies such as server-side scripting (see CGI, PHP, ASP.NET, ASP, JSP, and ColdFusion) and design standards like CSS further changed and enhanced the way the Web is made.

New websites are rich in designs and content. Web developers having graphic arts background, now pay more attention to how a page looks. The website marketers commonly referred as search engine optimization consultants (SEOs) look for extensive content and regular updations. Their combined expertise have now given a new dimension to websites . They now are used increasingly as business tools. This has led to a spurt in Internet growth both in terms of number of websites and flow of revenues worldwide.