Question

I am doing a paper in which I have to find the following information:

two web design theories. an example given is Gestalt

two web best practices, an example given is CSS

two technologies, an example given is HTML5

Are there any others? I am kind of lost here. I have no idea what theories, practices or technologies there are out there. Can someone give me a run down of several?

Answer 1

Web Design Theories

1. Visual Hierarchy : Visual hierarchy is one of the most important principles of web design theory. Designers use it to arrange certain elements of a web page. It’s a method that helps direct the human eye to what is important. A great way web designers arrange a website’s informational pyramid is to designate information according to size, color, and font.
2. Color Theory : A well-designed site will have an effective color scheme. Color theory helps designers differentiate websites from the competition. It also helps websites leverage the effect color may have on users. Choosing the right color for ‘calls-to-action’ can make a difference between selling a couple hundred of products to hundreds of thousands of products.
3. The Golden Ratio, Visual Direction, F-Pattern Layout, Z-Layout, Minimalism are some other theories.

Web best practices

I do not get it as why you mentioned CSS as a practice because it is a technology too. Below are the points which mentions what are the best practices to be followed while designing.

1. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) : SEO is one of our simple and effective web design best practices suggestions. It is used to increase the amount of visitors to your website by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the search engine results page (SERP). It does this through using a single phrase, known as a keyword, that is used throughout compelling and readable content on your site.
2. Mobile Friendly : You might build a great website that looks good when viewed on a desktop or laptop, but when being displayed on a cell phone or tablet, it becomes very cluttered, unorganized, and hard to navigate.A responsive design serves all devices with the same code that adjusts for every screen size
3. Easy Navigation, Email Marketing, Social Media promotion, Quality Photos, Fast Loading Time are some other practices which are in trend.

Technologies

Instead of just mentioning the scripting or programming languages, I have made some categories in technologies present today.

Programming Languages:

• Javascript - used by all web browsers, Meteor, and lots of other frameworks
• Python -used by the Django framework and used in a lot of mathematical calculations
• Ruby - used by the Ruby on Rails framework
• PHP - used by Wordpress
• Go - newer language, built for speed

Frameworks :

• Node.js - a server-side javascript framework
• Ruby on Rails - a full-stack framework built using ruby
• Django - a full-stack framework built using python
• Bootstrap - a UI (user interface) framework for building with HTML/CSS/Javascript
• Wordpress - a CMS (content management system) built on PHP.
• Drupal - a CMS framework built using PHP.
• .NET - a full-stack framework built by Microsoft
• Angular.js - a front-end javascript framework.

Databases :

• MongoDB - is an open-sourced NoSQL database.
• PostgreSQL - is a popular open-sourced SQL database.
• MySQL - is another popular open-sourced SQL database. MySQL is used in Wordpress websites.
• Oracle - is an enterprise SQL database.
• SQL Server - is an SQL server manager created by Microsoft.