Designing of Online Vs Print

Anything that is a great print design is likely to be a lousy web design. There are so many differences between the two media that it is necessary to take different design approaches to utilize the strengths of each medium and minimize its weaknesses.

Nielsen (1999) points out that ‘print design is 2-dimensional, with much attention paid to layout’. It is obviously possible for the reader to turn the page, but substantial interplay between different spreads is rare. Typically, each view is a design unit created for a fixed size canvas and it is often a big canvas when designing newspapers or posters. To the contrary, Web design is ‘1-dimensional and N-dimensional’ with up-and-down scrolling experience for the users.

Document designers need to resist ‘romancing the screen’ and focus on how readers interact with documents – how they create meaning from the visual and verbal content. (Schriver 1997, p.362) Print design is based on letting the eyes walk over the information, selectively looking at information objects and using spatial juxtaposition to make page elements enhance and explain each other. On the other hand, web design functions by letting the hands move the information (by scrolling or clicking); information relationships are expressed temporally as part of an interaction and user movement.

These are the examples of the differences of online and printed design.

The print page:The Sun newspaper

http://www.ilovepenangbrand.com/images/paper-the-star.jpg

The webpage: The Sun Online

http://mirijazzfestival.com/2007/img/media/press_report_the_star_online_20070504_2_large.gif

As clarified by Nielsen (1999),the differences between online and print design must be appreciated by making use of the strengths and underrating the weaknesses.

References:

Nielsen J 1999, Differences Between Print Design and Web design, viewed 7 November 2008, <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990124.html>

Nielsen, J 1999, Print vs. web design, viewed 7 November 2008, < http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990124.html>.

Shriver, K.A 1997, Chapter 6 in Dynamics in Document design.