Design

Information architecture

Good design goes far beyond visual style. It’s important to consider the organization of your application and its contents as a key component of project design.

Usability.gov, a web site of the federal government’s Department of Health and Human Services, has some good resources on information architecture, which speaks to the intellectual organization of your site.

Accessibility

An accessible application is one that can be viewed on a variety of devices, and can accept multiple modes of input (mouse click, keyboard input, touch screen) from users of varying abilities and/or impairments. This means writing in accessible language, clearly structuring pages, designing for colorblind users, avoiding hard-to-read text… the list is long and intimidating. The World Wide Web Consortium has an excellent accessibility guide, as well as a validator tool for checking your site’s HTML for basic markers of accessible design.

Wireframing

Wireframing is the practice of designing an application on a basic structural level. Instead of worrying about visual style, typefaces, color combinations, and the like, we concern ourselves primarily with the user experience and the organizational structure of a web application. This practice is common in the early design phase of a project, and can be done with digital wireframing tools or with pencil and paper.