Purpose – Web is no longer solely about functionality and information as it used to be. Nowadays the aesthetic aspects, including creativity, could be considered just as important. However, web designers still need to fulfil the needs of clients and users in the design process which causes various design constraints. Therefore, this study aims to investigate how web designers’ creativity is affected by various design constraints. This is explored by one main research question and a sub-question: 1.) How is web designers’ creativity affected by design constraints?; 1.1) What could cause web designers to break web design guidelines? Method – This research applied an inductive, qualitative approach with an exploratory view. In order to find answers for the research questions, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 8 participants from the field of web design. The data gathered was later analysed and evaluated through thematic analysis Conclusions – The findings of this study suggest that while there are some positive effects, web designers’ creativity is mostly negatively affected by design constraints. Furthermore, it seems web designers break web design guidelines due to finding them irrelevant and/or to get a more creative outcome as well as breaking them unintentionally. Delimitations – This study only covers how web designers reason regards the research questions and does not include the perspective of web developers. Moreover, this thesis focuses solely on website design and does not involve design for mobile applications.

O design é abordado neste trabalho desde a sua criação com a Bauhaus, passando por suas definições e conceituações, assim como também aponta os avanços tecnológicos da informática em especial à computação gráfica como ferramenta salutar ao designer gráfico. O mundo digital traz ao designer novas segmentações de atuação como o interface designer e o Web designer. O design, mesmo que historicamente exista há muito mais tempo do que a sua institucionalização como profissão independente no Brasil, firma-se na modernidade e ganha-se força neste momento contemporâneo, até definindo, em algumas situações e questões econômicas de mercado. Há uma singularidade no design que aglutina virtualmente duas características: facilitação da leitura e informação - que é o Web design, pois ao mesmo tempo em que informa o conteúdo de um Web site, demonstra o caminho a ser navegado e toda a sua interatividade. Com a disposição das novas mídias digitais¹, é salutar acompanhar o crescimento vertiginoso e preponderante que as informações permeiam com mais amplitude, permitindo a cada instante ganhar o aperfeiçoamento e a descoberta de novos meios de explicitar a mensagem com rapidez e objetividade oriundos num mundo moderno e globalizado em que vivemos. As universidades e faculdades, como facilitadoras de aprendizagem, investem em novas tecnologias para disseminar seus cursos, seus produtos, sua infraestrutura, e também utiliza dos recursos da Web para oferecer cursos on-line². Nessa linha de raciocínio, sobre o que é funcional, eficaz e ao mesmo tempo audacioso em um Web site, é analisado neste trabalho 80 instituições de ensino superior brasileiras, objetivando uma inovação no que diz respeito a usabilidade, baseado numa arquitetura de informação estruturada. A metodologia adotada baseia-se numa sequência de ítens de maior relevância, do ponto de vista técnico e operacional de usabilidade, juntamente com assuntos de interesse comuns apontados pelo público alvo. A análise remete a um diagrama de ordem quantitativa e, posteriormente, qualitativa, que evidencia aspectos inerentes ao interface design. / The design is approached in this paper work since its criation with Bauhaus, having its definitions and concepts , this way it also shows technological advances in the field of information technology in special to the graphic information technology as an important salutary tool to the graphic designer. The digital world brings to the designer new segments of perfomance such as interface designer and the web designer. The design, even existing such a long time before its intitutionalisation as an independent profession in Brazil, it gets strengh in both modern time and at this contemporary moment, and also in some situations and economic points in the market. There is such singularity in design that joins virtually two features: an easy way of reading and information - which is the web design field, though at the same time it informs all there is in a web site , shows the way to browse and all its interactivity. With all the display of new media , it is necessary to be aquainted with the growth and the manner that the information broadens with an opening way, allowing the user at every moment gain improvement and the discovery of new forms to set out the message fast and originating goals in this present and globalised world in which we live. The universities and colleges, places for getting knowledgement, invest in technology to broaden their courses, products, structure, they also make use of resources from the web to offer on line courses. In this line of approach what is functional, effective in a web site, in this paper work is analysed 80 institutions such as universities and colleges, getting the point of inovation about the use based on an structered information architecture. The metodology adopted is based on a sequence of items of important points of technical views and operational use, together with subjects of interest pointed by the target audience. The analysis sends to a quantitative diagram and further to a qualifying diagram that displays inherent aspects to the interface design.

This master thesis focuses on approaches to solving mobile web applications. Author focuses on the classification of mobile devices and the description of their attributes and specifications of touch screen controls. Part of the work is devoted to the characteristics of mobile operating systems and of mobile web browsers. One chapter is aimed on the psychology of user behaviour and expectations of mobile users from mobile website. A significant part of the work is paid to specifications of the development of web design for mobile devices and the differences to classical web design. In addition, the author describes the Responsive Web Design and the idea of Mobile First. In the practical part, the author analyzes the cross platform access to websites of Czech railway transport companies -- České dráhy, LEO Express and RegioJet. The access from smartphones, tablets and desktops is tested using analysis based on multi-criteria evaluation. To test the author uses a web emulator to simulate different versions of operating systems and web browsers. The aim of the analysis is to create a series of recommendations for better optimization of access from mobile devices.

E-commerce has become popular over the years with millions of people using this way of shopping. However e-commerce has also brought forth issues of fraud with consumers getting their identities stolen or being tricked into spending their money on products they don’t look the same in real life as on their mobile devices. There are current methods to try and prevent e- commerce fraud however the problem is still present. Consumers need to be able to identify credible websites. Studies have brought forward that there is a connection between the visuals of a website and it’s credibility. The purpose of this study is to discover how the visuals of a website affect consumers assessment of credibility. It is also the purpose to use this discovery to strengthen the credibility of e-commerce websites. A qualitative method, focus group interview, has been used to interview four females corresponding the e-commerce market’s current majority consumer. During the interview the visual content of four websites were navigated through and analysed. The results showed that for there to be credibility trust between the consumer and e-commerce website needs to be established. This is done by visually prioritizing consumer’s needs as consumers.

No description available.

The work deals with the current burning issue of cultural differences. These issues relate to the expression of culture and one's home country within the mediums of the Internet and online communication. Based on the research of previous studies, this work aims to demonstrate the influence of cultural dimensions in web design and content. In a sample of the largest beer producers in the Czech Republic, Japan and Great Britain supplemented with the largest international brewing companies are analyzed components which characterize cultural differences. The main scope of this study is based on assumptions and theories according to G. Hofstede and E. T. Hall. It thus demonstrates the influence of culture and dimensions -- Collectivism/Individualism, Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, High/Low Context, Masculinity/Femininity, Time Orientation and Colour symbolism. It is recommended that companies pay more attention to the cultural adaption of web communication, which can bring more clarity and attractiveness, and also a higher added value to the customer himself.

Smartphone usage is higher than ever and the number is steadily increasing, but not all websites on the Internet are adapted for use on smartphones. This study set out to find common and proven guidelines from the current scientific literature and create a guide on how to best adapt a desktop website to be optimized for use on smartphones. Areas of research were usability, readability and energy saving. A literature review of the body of data on the subject was reviewed and the result was put in a list of guidelines. The guidelines were used to compare the desktop version versus the smartphone version on 5 frequently visited websites.    The result was summarized with a score for each website and their respective solution for displaying components on small screens was noted. A prototype website was constructed in two versions: one responsive and one unresponsive. The prototype website’s different versions were then tested by a group of testers. The result of the tests concluded that the guidelines raised user satisfaction and readability. Sufficient energy saving metrics could not be extracted in the way design and usability was tested and had to be excluded from the testing.    The list of guidelines showed that there are solutions for solving readability, usability issues  and energy-saving issues on smartphones. The testing concluded that there was an increase in text readability and usability of the website when the guidelines were implemented. Further testing of energy saving must be conducted to test the validity of the remaining untested  guidelines.

The Internet is gradually expanding to many new devices, in addition to its original native environment that was the Personal Computer. This wave started with mobile devices and as we enter the Internet of Things era, connectivity is possible from cars to light switches. One of the first devices, to follow mobiles, is the Television. Connectivity and two-way interaction on the TV device has in fact started even in the first days of the medium, but had failed to make it widely available, due to technological limitations of the past. Now, this has changed, with the Smart TV devices that can utilize the fast internet connections that are available in most developed countries. However, even though the technology and devices are now widely available there are still challenges in order to make the vast Internet and web content available in the Smart TVs. These challenges, have a familiar resemblance to what happened a few years ago, when internet connectivity was introduced on the mobile phone. Although, it was "feasible" to access any webpage from your mobile device, the experience for the user was often very frustrating, due to many factors, that derived from the fact that the web was designed for large screens and mice of the desktop computers, not the small touch screens and limited hardware of the phone. Nonetheless, these obstacles were successfully overcome, by introducing techniques and methodologies (e.g. Responsive Web Design) to make the web more mobile-friendly and also work from the manufacturers to improve their devices to this direction as well. The success of these actions is now evident, since the access to the web from mobile devices has surpassed the PC, and it is now a standard practice for every new website to be mobile-friendly. In this research work, we will attempt to do one very significant step towards this direction for the Smart TV. In other words, to discover what has to be done to make the web more TV-friendly. To do this, we explore many different TV devices from several manufacturers and see their similarities and differences. We explore numerous user studies and surveys to discover what is the problem in the Web experience on the TV, so that we can propose solutions to make web content TV-friendly. Based on these findings, we design prototypes and put them to the test on different devices and userevaluation. Finally, we propose a set of guidelines, that web designers can apply on their websites to make them TV-friendly, in the hope to introduce the first step towards a friendlier internet era for the TV.

Designing for user experience is central to good web design, particularly in e-commerce settings. However, the relevant dimensions and processes of designing for user experience have been variously defined. This project develops an approach to web design that defines the key dimensions of user experience, including interactivity, participation, and flow, and web site design of the user experience. The idea of Interactive User Experience Design is advanced as a model for designing from the perspective of user experience. The project reviews relevant dimensions of user experience, proposes a model integrating key design dimensions of this experience, surveys design literate university students on effective online experiences, and develops a prototype for a hypothetical commercial web site that incorporates elements of co-creation and identity play. This practice-based project contributes a new proposal for web-based design and new knowledge in the form of an approach to user experience design.

The purpose of this research is twofold. Firstly, this research aims to investigate whether the design preferences of bloggers in selected countries from different cultural backgrounds are influenced by national culture traits. The investigation involves two categories of blogs selected within a country where the bloggers share similar attributes such as language or geographical location. Secondly, simultaneously, this research intends to discover the possibility of the impact of group level influence on design preferences of bloggers who are linked together in a network through bloggers’ linkage or blogrolls. To achieve the said purposes, observations on both the global and local blogs of six selected countries are conducted using the content analysis method. This method allows this research to observe web pages and rate design preferences of bloggers via a coding system, similar to the method used to analyse documents or manuscripts to find common themes or keywords. A total of 612 blogs (306 global and 306 local) are observed for a period of nine months to identify cultural traits on design behaviour based on national culture indicators chosen from prominent literatures. To prevent a systematic error, an independent second observer was appointed and the results obtained are compared using a statistical methodology. In addition, translators were also engaged to verify that the translations are of a correct meaning and comprehension since blogs use various national languages on their web pages. The data were statistically tested using SPSS engaging in statistical analysis of frequency table, Cross-Tabulation and cluster analyses and MANOVA. Results shown that design preferences between both the global and local blogs in each country, has significant differences in most of the design indicators chosen. The findings indicate that the national culture influence on design preferences in linked networks of blogs is weakening indicating another type of influence might be in existence. The results also provide evidence that blogs in linked networks are statistically significant as a cluster or a group by themselves and are independent from one cluster to another. The research, however, studies only six countries from six different cultural dimensions. The inclusion of other countries, similar to or different from the countries under investigation, would be an added advantage. Furthermore, the use of only a single type of global blog provider (blogspot.com) in this research could be extended to other global blog providers such as wordpress.com to give fairer coverage of major and popular global blogs as well as providing a wider generalisation effect of the research findings.