Designing for print versus designing for the web — what are the differences? This was the subject of a recent email sent to a few select people recently. It’s a good question. One we decided to elaborate on here. Sure this might be an article better suited to designers of the aforementioned media, but the basic understanding of these differences is helpful to anyone who has a web site. This is where it may apply to you.
Some Basic Differences
Printed media is presented in a particular, static format. Whether it be a book, magazine, or pamphlet, it is what it is. If the text is hard to see, the end-user must put on his or her reading glasses. If they don’t like the width of the page, tough. It is what it is. The notion of user choice when it comes to print media, never enters the picture. The designer, in the case of print, has complete control over all aspects of the communication save one: audio. Some print works are aurally recorded for consumption by the blind. In such cases the printed media is read. Aside from this, though, the designer reigns supreme. The user’s wishes do not have to even be considered and accommodation need not be made. And once the presses run… it is what it is.
Web-based media, namely a web page, offers the end-user a large number of choices and options. All of which must be known and considered by the designer. The web the designer must concede absolute control. Furthermore, the user of web-based media expects, and in some cases requires, the ability to exercise his or her choice. Moreover, not only end-users will access the media. Web site owners will also need access so as to add, remove, or update content. Web-based media, after all, is ever changing. Unlike printed media.
User choices, when it comes to the web, might include the following. Any of which may adversely affect the user’s enjoyment of the content if the media — the web page/site — wasn’t designed by someone who understands this and allows for it.
- Connection speed
- Scripting support
- Cookie support
- Image support
- Flash support
- Navigation means
- Input limitations
- Text resizing
- Window resizing
- Devices (to include):
- Screenreader support
- Text browser support
- Handheld support
- Printing support
- Display quality
- Typeface support
- And more…
The print media designer doesn’t need to worry about any of this.
Deep Understanding
To the aforementioned email, what follows are a couple of actual responses. Perhaps if the differences aren’t already clear — without blowing you away with technical reasoning — these insights will help clear things up.
In my eyes designing for the web is more difficult and having done both, quite different. The main difference is the loss of control on the web. On the web people will access your content with their devices, not yours or what you prescribed. They may not have your fonts, might not see your images, and may not even have access to your styles. Print design, while important, is eye-candy compared to web design. On the web the designer must come to grips with the fact that users will enjoy (or not) their own experience. On the web we must learn how to let go properly, while still designing. On the web the design starts not with the type face best used for the communication or the skin as an analogy; on the web we start with the guts, the skeleton, then we add the flesh, the nerves, the blood vessels, we do it all. On the web the designing never stops, and it starts right away.
In summation: Only on the web do the terms “developer” and “designer” get regularly interchanged. There’s a reason for that. To do it right, web developers must be web designers while web designers must also be web developers. In Print Land the lines of demarcation are much more clear, the jobs more defined. — Mike Cherim for Accessites
And here’s another which followed up the first.
I agree wholeheartedly with what Mike Cherim said. In addition to his eloquent response, I’d like to add one more difference: print design is a single channel of communication, while content on the Web can be served in many different channels (e.g., Web pages, RSS feeds).
When designing for print you have full control, as Mike said. You know the exact dimensions of your ‘canvas’, you can choose any font you like, you have full control over colours, etc.
With a Web document you don’t know anything for certain, except that the receiving application will support HTTP and HTML (or RSS, Atom, etc.). You don’t know how large the visitors’ displays will be, or even if they have visual displays; they could be accessing your document via a speech synthesizer, a Braille tactile display or whatnot. You don’t know how many colours their graphics card supports or what gamma correction there’ll be. You don’t know which fonts are installed or what custom settings each user may have declared in their browser. You don’t know if non-textual content, like photographs and icons, is going to be supported.
On the other hand, paper also has limitations compared to the Web. In a Web document you can use animations (for those who can access them). You can add interactivity (unobtrusively) via JavaScript [or hyperlinks]. The users can submit information via a form, from which you can process and return interesting and valuable results. You can use multiple alternative style sheets to serve the same document in vastly different ways to different types of devices (including printers).
The main thing to remember, I think, is that with print design the designer has total control, but on the Web it’s the user who has the ultimate control. All we can do is to suggest what we think things should look like.
Print design often starts with the visual design. Web design should start with the content: you mark up the semantic meaning and the structure (HTML), then you add visual styling (CSS) and interactive behaviour (JavaScript). — Tommy Olsson for Accessites
Hopefully you have an even better idea now.
Getting On With It
If it’s not yet clear, the use simple and valid HTML or page markup will yield the best, safest results for user. Pages should flow and not be unencumbered. Using the proper, simple, markup allows this to happen. Of course there are all sorts of tricks that must be known by the web developer/designer but it really boils down to using proper markup and sizing it in a way that is not restrictive.
Web site owners don’t need to know a lot about different elements and attributes, a limited selection is needed in almost all cases where simple content updates are being made to an existing site. Simple things like understanding paragraphs, headings, and sometimes lists. Throw in a couple more like blockquotes, emphasis, and links and all needs should be met, if the page is right to begin with and that it’s added to the right way. Web designers can usually address this by offering simple instructions and resources to the end-users, and end-users can do their part by playing by the rules, sticking to them, and asking if something isn’t clear.
The requirements for web design, due to the way users can interact with it, are much more complex (but yield more comprehensive results), but if designers forgo absolute control over the end product, understand and accept this, and explain it to the owners of the sites being designed so that nothing is lost in the translation, the differences aren’t something that one needs to dwell on.