In our daily lives, the intricacies and tactile details of the items and institutions around us are usually taken for granted. Cars are driven on highways which were planned, developed and built by innumerable people and create a latticework of circuitry across the country. While the cars that drive them function as coherent proof of the mechanical prowess and ingenuity it requires to provoke motion, the design has been developed over lifetimes while evolving to become more efficient and powerful. And yet when a gas pedal is pushed or a foot hits the sidewalk, all of these things come together so fluidly that they seem invisible.
This phenomenon remains true in the online world. With more and more people using the Web on tablets, smartphones and computers the details of how these pages come into being remains a mystery to the average user. This imperceptibility lends itself to the importance for communicators to understand how websites are designed and built. As seminal communications theorist Marshall McLuhan put it, “the medium is the message,” and without a pleasing, coherent medium, even the best communications will fall flat.
In the spirit of learning a few things about how to design an engaging website, here is a fascinating infographic on the anatomy of the perfect website template from Template.net. 