Frequently Asked Questions - Web Design Concepts Explained

There are so many components that come together to make a good website that it can appear somewhat overwhelming when you first begin contemplating one. On this page, you should find explanations of (hopefully) anything that you are likely to need, and how they fit into the grand scheme of things.

Click below to jump to a topic, or scroll down the page to read them all.

• What is Accessibility, and how does it affect me?
• What is PHP?
• I've heard that Bandwidth is expensive, can't I just use my broadband?
• I've never heard of Ruby On Rails, what is it?
• What is a CMS, and do I need one?
• How do I get more visitors to my website?
• I know you hand code CSS, but what does it do exactly?
• What do you mean by Storage Space or Hosting?
• Is my website a Domain?
• What does SQL stand for?
• I've heard a lot about Flash, do you use it in your websites?
• Do you use Templates? I dont want my site to look like anyone elses!
• What is Hosting?

Accessibility

Accessibility is the term given to how easy it is to view a website on multiple platforms. For example, 80% of users look at web page through the browser that Microsoft provides with Windows (Internet Explorer), so many web designers only concern themselves with how a site looks with this program. This is a dangerous precedent to set however, as potentially 1 in 5 people looking at your web page are using something else! There are many, many programs available for browsing the internet - Firefox and Opera are probably the next most popular for windows users, and Apple includes Safari with all of its computers.

Speaking of web browsers, another consideration is the age of the browser that someone is using to view a web page - if you are a content publisher for example, and university or college students are in your target audience, they may be using an antiquated version of one of the above browsers, which may or may not be able to interpret a design that displays just fine in a more recent version.

There are always cases where people are unable to use traditional web browsers, and rely on programs that read the webpage and then recite it to them verbally. Unless a website is designed with these people and programs in mind, your content becomes illegible to them.

Phones with internet access are also becoming more common, and because of the small screens that they tend to have they will display web pages in a completely different way to how a computer would.

Every website made by Highlight attempts to maximise accessibility. I strictly adhere to the exacting standards laid down by the World Wide Web Consortium, and each page that achieves this target will display the icons below. If you would like more details on the W3C's standards and protocols, visit their website.

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Bandwidth

Every web site on the internet is hosted on a computer somewhere in the world (I'll explain this in a little more detail under the hosting heading). Just as your computer accesses the internet via a modem or a router, the computer hosting your website has a similar internet connection. The capacity that this connection has to pass data to and from the computer is called bandwidth

Although the connection used by a computer hosting web sites will typically be much faster than one a home or small business is likely to use, there is still a limit to the amount of data it can handle. Naturally, the more data sent to and from a website the higher the associated bandwidth costs.

Thanks to a terrific deal Highlight has with its Web Hosting Provider, bandwidth is unlikely to be a consideration for many of our customers. Only if you wish to sell products via an online shopfront, or expect tens of thousands of visitors a month, or intend to make a particularly large amount of media (such as music, pictures or movies) available to them, would you be required to pay for bandwidth in excess of the price outlined in your package.

You can rest assured that no stealth fees or charges will be applied in the rare event your website uses more bandwidth than we plan for.

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Content Management

Updating a web page can be a time consuming process. Manually editing the files that construct a web page to update or append text can be an awkward process, not to mention the potential for disaster if necessary code is accidentally deleted!

To get around this, many companies who have to make constant updates (new product lines or news pages for example) use a content management system, or CMS. These systems, often written in PHP, Ruby On Rails and/or SQL, allow a user to update a page quickly and easily, often simply by putting text in a box and then clicking a button.

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CSS

CSS is an important component of all modern web pages. It is short for Cascading Style Sheets, and is the document where all the information on a web page's presentation is stored. By having all of this data in one place, it makes it quicker and easier to update a website's design. It also allows for flexibility in how and where you want your webpage displayed, CSS greatly simplifies the process of making the same data available to anyone accessing your page from multiple platforms which might view the data very differently, mobile phones and palmtop computers for example.

CSS is a core component in the making of accessible websites, and the World Wide Web Consortium have set out exacting standards for its correct use. The symbol below should appear on any website that is standards compliant.

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Domain

In practical terms, a domain is the access point to your website. When you register a domain, the name of that domain (for example www.bbc.co.uk) is stored on servers across the internet. Now, should anybody wish to access your site, they need only type the domain name into their web browser, instead of the numerical value that computers deal with by default.

Typically, most Domain names are registered for 12 months at a time, although many companies offer registration for up to 10 years for when you are certain to want to hold on to a name. Highlight registers sites for 12 months as standard, and includes renewal of the address in our yearly maintainance package.

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Flash

Macromedia Flash, or simply Flash, is a graphics program for webpages. It was very popular in the late 90's, and is still a common method of adding animation or interactivity to a website. Many adverts that you will have seen on the internet, popup or otherwise, are created with flash. While powerful, flash does have a few drawbacks - it requires you to download and install a program before you can view anything that has been made with it, and its association with online advertisements has led to the creation of software that stops popups by blocking any flash from displaying on the computer at all!

For these reasons Highlight will rarely recommend the use of Flash on a website, except in cases where extremely detailed animation is required and accessibility is less important

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Hosting

A web host is the person or place who provides individuals and organizations with online services to store content accessed over the internet. Typically, a web host will own or rent computers (called servers) in a datacenter which store all of the data that you want to be made available online. This datacenter will have a fast internet connection, allowing many more people to view or download the files than would be possible if you hosted them yourself over a broadband connection for example.

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PHP

PHP is a scripting or programming language, primarily used to create dynamic content on web pages, ie text or images that change without having to reload a page. It is also used in conjunction with other languages such as SQL to administer databases.

In most cases, Highlight will implement sites with Ruby On Rails as opposed to PHP.

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Ruby On Rails

Ruby on Rails is a relatively new entrant in the Web Development arena, and is only recently becomming well known in development circles, let alone outside!

It is an extraordinarily powerful programming language that simplifies the process of making dynamic web content. E-Commerce websites that would take a team of php programmers to construct can be created in the same time by a single Ruby On Rails developer. Unless a customer explicitly requested otherwise, all content management systems and E-commerce sites implemented by Highlight are created with Ruby on Rails.

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Search Engine Optimisation

Having a well designed and informative website is one thing, having people actually visit it is another thing entirely. Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO is the process of propagating your web page over the internet, so that whenever somebody is searching for something related to your business, they are directed to your domain. Pay per click advertising, such as that made famous by google, falls under search engine optimisation, and as with most forms of marketing tends to be most effective when it is well funded. There are many other types of SEO that cost little however, or are even free, such as many business and marketing directories. There are also ways of designing a web page to make it easier for search engines to process, which in turn helps it to rise through the ranks in their index. For a more detailed explanation of how sites such as google rank websites, click here.

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Storage Space & Hosting

Storage space (somtimes referred to as Hosting) is simply the amount of hard disk space that your webhost allocates you. Simple websites, consisting of text and a few pictures, take up very little hard disk space. Storage space only really becomes inmportant if you want to put up a lot of high quality photographs/videos/songs for people to view or download.

Hosting is a more general term, that really applies to the package of services that someone recieves when they purchase storage space online

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SQL

SQL, pronounced "Sequel" and commonly expanded to "Structured Query Language" is the most popular language for the storage and manipulation of data online. If you used a registry office as a metaphor, PHP or Ruby on Rails would be a person performing administrative duties, and SQL would be a clerk fetching or depositing files for them.

If you need a website to take, store and process data from consumers in any sort of quantity, then SQL is the most popular, and probably the most effective way of doing it.

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Template/Design

When most people think of web design, the first thing they think of is how it is presented. Typically, the design is created in an art program before any coding takes place. This design, often without any images or text attached, is called a template.

Highlight has a large database of templates suitable for all sorts of websites. Once it has been customised to meet the requirements of a particular business or person it is next to impossible for a trained eye to spot the connection between template and finished design, never mind an untrained eye!

It is perhaps more accurate to think of the template as the scaffolding around which your website is constructed, rather than as a blueprint or a mould as the name would seem to denote.

Of course, if you are determined to have a specific or bespoke design then Highlight will be happy to accommodate you.

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