Web design is the designing and graphical presentation of content shown on the Internet in the form of Web sites and other Web applications using many different forms of media. The basic design of most pages on the Web use HTML, CSS, and the newest form of language, XHTML. Many sites today also integrate various forms of dynamic, interactive content using E-Commerce, and server-side languages such as PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor), and ASP. Web design contrasts with Web development, which includes Web server configuration, writing Web applications, and server security.

Web Site Design

A Web site 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 Web site is developed. A website might be compared to a book, where each page of the book is a web page.

Read more: Web Design

The traditional method of laying out web pages, HTML, is static. There are two ways of delivering content dynamically:

Server-side

A web server, running special software, constructs an HTML page 'on the fly', according to the user's request and possibly other variables, such as time or stock levels.

Client-side

Client-side scripting works at the user's browser, and therefore should not be used for "mission critical" work, where the user's capabilities are not known ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú it is more suited to adding decoration and other ephemeral content. It is most often achieved through JavaScript.

Before creating and uploading a website, it is important to take the time to plan exactly what is needed in the website. Thoroughly considering the audience or target market, as well as defining the purpose and deciding what content will be developed are extremely important.

Purpose

It is essential to define the purpose of the website as one of the first steps in the planning process. A purpose statement should show focus based on what the website will accomplish and what the users will get from it. A clearly defined purpose will help the rest of the planning process as the audience is identified and the content of the site is developed. Setting short and long term goals for the website will help make the purpose clear and plan for the future when expansion, modification, and improvement will take place. Also, goal-setting practices and measurable objectives should be identified to track the progress of the site and determine success.

Read more: Website Planning

Content development is the process of researching, writing, gathering, organizing, and editing information for publication on web sites. Web site content may consist of prose, graphics, pictures, recordings, movies or other media assets that could be distributed by a hypertext transfer protocol server, and viewed by a web browser.

Read more: Web Content Development

A Web template system describes the software and methodologies used to produce web pages and for deployment on websites and delivery over the internet. Such systems process web templates, using a template engine. It is a web publishing tool present in content management systems, software frameworks, HTML editors, and many other contexts.

The basic process of content (from a database) and "presentation specifications" (in a web template) are combined (through the template engine) to mass-produce web documents.

A web template system is comprised of:

• Content resource - any of various kinds of input data streams, such as from a relational database, XML files, LDAP directory, and other kinds of local or networked data;

• Template resource -web templates specified according to a Template language;

The template and content resources are processed and combined by the template engine to mass-produce web documents.

Read more: Web Template System

Electronic Commerce is exactly analogous to a marketplace on the Internet. Electronic Commerce (also referred to as EC, e-commerceeCommerce or ecommerce) consists primarily of the distributing, buying, selling, marketing and servicing of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. The information technology industry might see it as an electronic business application aimed at commercial transactions; in this context, it can involve electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, e-marketing, online marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), automated inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. Electronic commerce typically uses electronic communications technology of the World Wide Web, at some point in the transaction's lifecycle, although of course electronic commerce frequently depends on computer technologies other than the World Wide Web, such as databases, and e-mail, and on other non-computer technologies, such as transportation for physical goods sold via e-commerce.

According to the October 2006 Forrester Research report entitled, " US eCommerce: Five-Year Forecast and Data Overview, "Nontravel online retail revenues will top the quarter-trillion-dollar mark by 2011. The driver of this growth? A segment of the most active Web shopping households that is approximately 8 million strong. This group of consumers is extremely comfortable with technology and values convenience above all else in the online retail experience. As retailers begin to wade through their copious data warehouses and understand the who, what, when, where, why, and how of this segment, they will benefit from targeting these customers."

Read more: Electronic Commerce