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Essential web design problem

The essential web design problem is to decide how to shape, structure and display a big blob of content

Content is information, and it comes in a long sausage, first bit first. The browser takes this and makes a blob, then works out how to render it into a page. The browser needs to know about:

• The structure of the content: is this a heading? what kind of list? etc
• The presentation of the content: what colour? text size? position? etc

Therefore, a web designer is really thinking about how to create a usable and readable shape for your content (because structure is the key to a good web page) and how to make it look good (because aesthetics are important).

Page content is a big blob. The browser renders it into a readable shape – usually with some of this visible (on the screen) and some hidden (waiting to be found by scrolling, say). How the browser makes up the page depends on the instructions for structure (HTML) and presentation (CSS).

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