Forum Moderators: open
Browsers, HTML, and Page Design [webmasterworld.com]
Website Graphics Design and Usage [webmasterworld.com]
Webmaster General [webmasterworld.com]
After looking through and viewing the descriptions, it seems HTML forum leans heavily to code issues like HTML and CSS, Graphics forum to mechanics of making graphics, and Webmaster General kind of a non-specific potpourri.
It seems like a bit of overlap, and I'm wondering if it's clear enough, particularly from the perspective of newer members.
Which seems to be the logical place to post about effective ways to design?
Where would it be logical for someone to look up previous threads related to page and web site design that are not specifically about code or making graphics?
We have usability threads there which have nothing at all to do with code. Especially with client-side scripting headed for its own forum in the near future, I think "Browsers, HTML and Site Design" makes a lot of sense.
I have thoughts on that issue, but I'll pass for now and focus on what I see as relating directly to web site interface design, which is why I brought this up.
>I think that "Site Design" and "Site Structure" are appropriate in the "Browsers, HTML and Page Design" forum.
Looking at just those two issues, overall site design, as it relates to site appearance and appeal, can't exclude the issue of graphics.
"Site Structure" fits in with deciding where to place the navigation elements within the design itself, but also relates for those who consider keywords and SEO, which is another issue. Yet it can't be divorced from Graphics considerations altogether.
The title of the Graphics forum:
Website Graphics Design and Usage
to me, indicates to a great degree the usage of graphics in designing a site. In other words, as an integral part of the site design process, during the creative process of designing the interface. There are certain elements which are a critical part of the initial formation of the design concepts for a site. The overall look, as I see it, how it will appear, relates more to graphics and color choices, which I personally relate to this forum.
The HTML forum to me seems more logical and left brain, while the Graphics/Design represents more of the artistic and creative, right brain functions in the design process.
Sure, moderators look to see what fits where. A question on spiders won't fit in the Advertising forum, that's a given. But what I'm wondering is whether the distinctions are clear to others especially those new to the site - and whether other moderators and regular members who know their way around think it's clear enough for others who are newer.
A site can be designed either graphically, sometimes we do a rough draft in fireworks for example on a 800x600 canvas, laying the whole thing out. Other times we will form the HTML structure and then see what grapics fit in. In either case there is a strong distinction, even down to staff, between the two.
Graphics are graphics, site design is site design. :)
The recent Graphics forum thread on color associations [webmasterworld.com] is a good example of an "abstract" design-related topic that fits well in the Graphics forum, but a post on the relative benenfits of left- or right-handed navigation [webmasterworld.com] definitely belongs in Browsers, HTML and Page Design...
