Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Design: CSS, Themes, and Master Pages

Chapter 2. Web Design 101

The quintessential element of any web design is, in fact, the web design itself. This may come off as a bit simplistic, but many people forget about that crucial component. The primary audience for this book is programmers who are already familiar with ASP.NET but who want to learn more about how to make the sites they develop more stunning and user-friendly. The core of this idea, though, is not exclusive to .NET programmers. In order to make dramatically dazzling user interfaces, programmers need to understand the basic concepts of web design. This would include areas of layout, color, and graphics.

But it should also include a fair understanding of the audiences that will be consuming the sites you produce. What kind of browsers should you target? What will your site look like if the user turns off stylesheets? How about JavaScript? What kind of bandwidth limitations are there? How likely is your clientele to print the pages you produce? What else?

This chapter will elaborate on some the basic concepts of web design. You will begin to understand style, color, and layout. You will hear some of the current topics and trends of web design, some of which may be completely new to you. You will begin to appreciate the work that goes into creating good web design.

This chapter will not, however, go into any topics necessarily limited to the ASP.NET arena. Concepts of good web design are universal and, as such, should never be thought of strictly in terms of a ...