Page 53 - Luke Lister

The Role of Aesthetics

in Web Design

I began my Essay with looking at the history of the internet. From the formation of the ARPNET in the 1950s to the
release of the award-winning invention constructed by Tim Berners-Lee from CERN, the World Wide Web revolutionised
the way humans interact with information. gure 1 shows a comparison between the rst website ever found on the

internet and the minimalistic google search engine we are all so used to today. The creation of the world wide web

brought about a new medium for creatives to work with and it is the evolution of how people design on the internet
which helped us develop strategies and an understanding of users.

A company’s webpage is vital to the success of the brand. We can judge a websites performance on the linguistic,

functional and aesthetic e ects it uses to communicate points between the company and the user. Figure 2 shows an
image of Keukenhof Gardens in the Netherlands which is the nest spring garden in the world. The reason I am showing
this to you is because gardening and web design share some similarities. Gardens that have been well thought out can

be the ultimate expression of human creativity and it is the way that visitors are a ected by this use of natural
expression which is interesting. When we are in the presence of a garden that has been put together with a very high
attention to detail, our admiration and appreciation is almost intuitive. User Experience is a professional terminology

that concerns itself with areas of web development that help construct tools and services to be intuitive to their users,
therefore by taking inspiration from how gardeners produce such breathe taking landscapes with minor details relating
to colour and shapes, functional and appealing websites can be constructed.

In the dictionary, colour is referred to in its rawest form as being the visual properties of light. However to humans Figure 1

colours can mean much more. For centuries, colours have been an intuitive tool for us to use when deciding whether
fruit is ripe, when meat is safe or when beer and honey is good. It tells us how strong our cup of co ee/tea is or the
quality of our recently purchased tomato paste. These natural reactions to colour we have developed in our minds have

been a common tool used by designers in many areas for years. Warm colours consist of Red, Orange and Yellow and are
commonly associated with emotions such as energy, passion and positivity. Green, Blue and Purple make up the cool

colours as they represent night, water and nature, these colours are very calming. The remaining colours are considered
neutral colours which consist of Black, Grey, White and Brown. These colours are often used as backdrops in design
which allow warm and cool colours to successfully act as accent colours.

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To conclude, the need for aesthetics in design has evolved drastically over the last 2 decades to the point where form

over function is rather irrelevant because form has now become a major attribute to a functional website. The use of
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aesthetics can successfully help websites attract speci c demographics and cater to all of their needs very successfully. Figure 2
In an age where computers have the potential to gather information and generate a very large understanding of how
your website performs in the public eye, not using aesthetics to compliment their activity is rather suicidal as the public

have been pruned to expect it and with how fast the technology is moving, all of your competitors will be racing to get
an aesthetic edge over your design.