Kevin Wright’s blog

Once you know what you are building, and how you are going to build it, you can start designing what it will look like and how the user interacts with the various features on the website. As project manager, you will communicate to the graphic designers and user interface designers who the audience is-their attitudes, expectations, and motivations. Most of all, designers need a clear idea of what action the organization expects users to take on the website.
User interface design and visual design work hand-in-hand to create the user experience but are not the same thing. User interface design is a unique discipline that draws on design theory and cognitive psychology. The user interface design basically describes what the user needs to do to make use of the site and operate the site features.
The information architect, if a team has one, works closely with designers on the user interface design. Regardless of what positions constitute the team, to execute a well-designed user interface, the designer must be intimately familiar with the functional specifications. The user interface defines the way users will get around the site, as well as the specific mechanics of interacting with elements such as buttons, text fields, and the like. Consider a site with five main sections, each containing subsections. The designer must decide whether a static navigation bar on the top of the screen will suffice, or if the site is deep enough to warrant an expandable tree on the left, showing the subsections for each main section.
The user interface design questions around the search feature for Campus Posters, Inc., include the following:
1. How will customers find their way to the search field?
2. What sorts of tips or guidance should be offered?
3. If there are no hits, what will the page look like?
4. How will the customer get back to the search field to try again?
Any labels or instructions on the site are part of the user interface design, as are the messages in dialog boxes.
User interface design is critical to a site’s success. It’s easy to see how this aspect might become the weak link that would make all of the other work on the site fruitless. A rich, robust, full-featured site serves nobody if only the programmer can figure out how to operate it.
The visual design refers to the artwork itself, such as graphics, logos, colors, and fonts. An aesthetic element of the site, the graphics convey a mood or motif. All the elements of artistic aesthetics-color, texture, illustrations, and photographics-can contribute to the ultimate goals of the website. Good graphic design also supports the usability of the site. Consistent, purposeful use of color, shape, layout, and other elements of design can subtly orient users to the site’s structure. The best design is subtle in that it doesn’t call attention to itself, but powerful in that it clearly communicates more than words ever could. Your users may or may not read the text on your site; most users, in fact, don’t. There’s no escaping your visual message, though. At first blush, the graphics are a decorative element; however, they must be called upon to do more. Otherwise, they are merely gratuitous eye candy.
Unfortunately, novices tend to start their website development projects with graphics because that is what they see and notice about other sites. Flashy as the visual design might be, it nevertheless plays a supporting role to function in website development. Creating graphics is extremely time-consuming. Final artwork need not be prepared until other design phases have been completed.