Web Design For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Introduction

Designing professional Web sites is not just about making beautiful pages: It's about understanding your audience and crafting an information structure that not only meets their needs but fulfills business goals as well.

It's about working with a team of people, and understanding the interworkings of the production process from content development through to visual design, comp production, and technical integration.

Over the course of the next 300 or so pages, I show you how to understand the Web design process from start to finish, with an emphasis on creative design and development. At the end of this book, you'll have the understanding it takes to tackle a major, commercial Web site project. You'll still need lots of practice and experience to turn out the good stuff, but this book gives you the solid foundation that you need to succeed.

About This Book

This book is written for both the creative professional who's looking to get into the world of Web design, and the business professional who needs to understand the Web creative and production process in order to manage it. I'm not talking about building personal sites with frilly fonts and loud background patterns. I'm talking about building enterprise-level Web sites for real-world clients — clients ranging from Fortune 100 companies to start-ups that need high-powered Web sites to function as an integral part of a business.

Whether you're managing the process from an executive standpoint, or are a contributing team ...