What is website layout in simple words?

People who are interested in web-related topics often wonder, ‘What is HTML/CSS website layout? Why is it used when creating a site?’ or they want to understand why they are offered to design the website layout as part of the website development process.

Website layout is a creative process during which web pages are created and designed. This process involves the skillful combination of description, layout and styling of various elements that significantly affect the appearance and functionality of the site. Layout becomes an integral part of website development, as it is what gives the site its uniqueness and attractiveness. It not only forms an aesthetically pleasing visual presentation, but also provides users with the convenience of interacting with content and navigating the site. All these aspects emphasize the importance of layout in creating modern and successful websites

Why is proper website layout so important?

Website layout is a crucial stage in the development of a website as it determines how the interface will be presented to the client. Several key aspects of a project depend on it, such as:

• Correct display and functioning of the website on different devices (laptops, tablets, phones) and browsers (Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, etc.). Mistakes in the layout can lead to certain elements being displayed incorrectly or essential website functions, like submitting contact forms, not working properly.
• Validity, semantic structure, and adherence to web standards of the layout code. This can affect the website's search engine ranking, its accessibility to users, and overall compatibility with web technologies.
• Website page loading speed. The use of outdated image formats, the lack of optimization of scripts and style files can lead to an increase in the loading time of the site pages by several times.

If the website layout is poorly executed, all these factors can have a negative impact on the attractiveness of the web resource for users. Therefore, proper website layout is essential to ensure optimal functionality, compatibility, and user experience.

What is included in website layout?

To better understand what website layout entails, let's take a closer look at its main aspects and components:

1. HTML Markup: HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the primary markup language used to create web pages. This language is used to structure and organize content on the page. Each element, such as headings, paragraphs, images, or links, is defined using appropriate HTML tags.
2. Element Placement: website layout involves placing various elements, such as text, images, videos, buttons, and others, on the page. This requires using different positioning techniques, such as block layout and inline layout. It's important to create a convenient and logical structure that allows users to easily navigate the web page interface
3. CSS Styling: CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is used to define the visual appearance of a web page. With CSS, you can set colors, font sizes, spacing between paragraphs or list items, background images, and more. It helps maintain a consistent style throughout the site and makes it visually appealing to users.
4. Responsive Design: considering the screen resolutions and devices on which the website may be displayed, it's important to ensure responsive layout. This means that the web page should be displayed correctly on various screen sizes, including computers, tablets, and mobile devices. Responsive design ensures convenient interaction with the site regardless of the device it's accessed from.
5. Cross-Browser Support: different browsers may interpret HTML and CSS differently, so it's important to test how the site is displayed in various popular browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and others. Ensuring cross-browser compatibility helps make the site accessible to a wider audience of users.
6. Enhancing Interactivity: the essence of interactivity on a web page lies in its ability to respond and interact in response to user actions. Depending on the specific project requirements, developers implement interactive elements using JavaScript scripts. These elements can include pop-ups, mobile menus, step-by-step forms, and more. Interactivity helps users easily and conveniently engage with the site for its intended purpose. For example, an online store's shopping cart allows users to select products, calculate the total order amount, or choose a convenient shipping method with just a few mouse clicks.
7. Optimizing Loading Speed: page loading speed is an important factor in user satisfaction. Website layout should be optimized for fast loading, which includes file minimization, caching usage, image optimization, and other techniques to ensure efficient page performance.

Technologies You Need to Know for Website Development

Website development involves the use of various tools, with HTML and CSS occupying a special place among them. HTML serves as the foundation for creating the structure of a web page by defining different blocks and elements on the page. It allows you to organize content and establish their hierarchy. On the other hand, CSS is used to apply styles and formatting to these elements. With CSS, you can set colors, fonts, sizes, element positioning, and much more. This allows you to give a unique appearance and design to your web page, making it attractive and user-friendly.

Another important tool that ensures interactivity on a website is the JavaScript programming language. With JavaScript, developers have the ability to write scripts to implement more complex functionality that cannot be achieved with HTML and CSS alone. For example, displaying a popup window with a message after a button click, interacting with the server without page reload (AJAX requests), and much more.

There are also numerous tools that can expedite website development or assist in implementing advanced functionality. These tools include frameworks such as Bootstrap and Foundation, which provide collections of standardized elements commonly found on most websites (buttons, forms, tables, etc.), along with JavaScript scripts for some of them, such as menus, tabs, and more. Additionally, there are JavaScript frameworks and libraries like React, Angular, Vue, and others that offer various templates for interacting with browser components, including ready-to-use code that developers can utilize to solve common tasks.

Useful Tools

The use of various auxiliary tools by developers can significantly accelerate the website development process. Some of these tools include:

1. Emmet: Emmet is a tool that allows for quick HTML code writing. Using a special syntax that closely resembles CSS selectors, it generates the necessary markup for the developer. For example, when entering the selector "p.paragraph" and triggering Emmet (usually with the Tab key), it generates a paragraph with the class "paragraph":
   
   
   
   
   
   Or, using the short string "ul.list>li*6", it will create an unordered list (ul) with the class "list" that contains six list items (li):
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Preprocessors such as SASS/LESS are tools for writing CSS styles. They allow developers to write styles for page elements more quickly. This is achieved through a more convenient syntax that helps organize code, use variables for colors, utilize mixins (snippets that allow code reuse), and more.
3. Project bundlers (such as Gulp, Webpack, Vite, and others) are special tools that automate working with front-end project files, including images, scripts, and style files. They offer powerful functionality; for example, they can automatically optimize CSS and JavaScript files, include libraries in the project, generate images in the required format, and perform many other tasks.

Responsive Design

In addition, the layout of the site includes the development of adaptive design. In today's world where users use different devices with different screen sizes, it's important to ensure that a web page looks good and works efficiently on any device. This is achieved through the use of responsive design, where the page automatically adapts to the screen size by changing the position and size of elements.

Conclusion

In summary, web design is the process by which web pages are created and designed using the HTML markup language, CSS styles, and other related technologies. It includes the placement and styling of elements, the implementation of interactivity, the development of adaptive design and ensuring cross-browser compatibility. Website layout is important to create a user-friendly and attractive interface for users, which helps ensure the success and effectiveness of the website.