Filed under Design Theory & Methodology
A very useful and effective way to understand and practice Web design is in terms of the holonarchies that organize the work and the work product.
The main holonarchy for Web design is as follows:
Brand -> Look & Feel -> Templates (e.g., 1 col, 2 col, etc.) -> Content Types (e.g., editorial, menus, guides, directories, widgets, etc.) -> Content (actual images and text)
Specifically, this is a design holonarchy. There are others, most notably the purposes holonarchy of
Stakeholders (both internal & external) -> Business Aims -> Features -> Content & Functionality -> User Tasks -> Site Map -> Wireframes
Another way to think about these two holonarchies is in terms of Design on the one hand, and Strategy & Requirements on the other.
There is an implementation holonarchy too (who'd have guessed?):
Features -> User Tasks -> Software Architecture -> GUI -> Functional Modules -> Databases.
Each “holon” of any holonarchy includes its predecessor as a special case. E.g., at each level of the design holonarchy we define alignment, palette, grid, layout, texture, tone, etc. The question is a matter of specificity. At the bottom of the holonarchy, you have raw content: unsorted, unorganized, unstandardized, non-conforming to any pattern. At the top, you have "brand", the most over-arching, general guidelines that constrain everything below it. The art of web design is partly the art of constructing the right level of specificity, and the right number of elements at each level.
If you have too few elements at the top and too many at the bottom, then the site becomes very inconsistent and disorganized, which translates into problems with development and maintenance cost (too expensive), schedule (takes too long), usability (unclear and inconsistent), and brand coherence. The client will be faced with designing content from scratch every time they want to do something. This leads to them making it up as they go along rather than just following an architecture and conventions already laid out for the creation of content.
If you have too many elements at the top and too few at the bottom, then this translates into a site that is too generic for the content it needs to contain. The client will lack the requisite variety to express their communications adequately.
Getting this wrong is a major cause of Web project problems, from mismanaged client expectations, to inaccurate estimations of scope.
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