web design
Enable an AI agent to recognise a web design activity, assess how well its decisions support intended users and tasks, and identify justified changes or unresolved constraints.
Research draft, second pass
A second pass drafted this model: the structure a model of this thing needs, and what is known about it in the world. The line under this one says how the second half was obtained - researched against sources, or recalled without web access, in which case nothing here was read anywhere and every claim is a lead to verify. Unreviewed either way.
recalled by Codex without web access - no source was read
Researched by: Codex
Purpose and description
Enable an AI agent to recognise a web design activity, assess how well its decisions support intended users and tasks, and identify justified changes or unresolved constraints.
Web design is the activity of planning and specifying the content organisation, visual presentation and interactive behaviour of websites and web interfaces to support their users' tasks.
It can be Map an intended user task to the pages, content and interactions needed to complete it.; Generate or revise wireframes, page compositions and interactive prototypes within recorded constraints.; Identify missing navigation routes, interface states and responsive behaviours.; Inspect designs and delivered pages for usability and accessibility barriers.; Compare design alternatives using explicit task outcomes and browsing conditions.; Prepare implementation guidance and record discrepancies between the specified and delivered experience..
Distinguishing features
The activity makes decisions about an experience delivered through web pages or browser-based interfaces; a standalone poster or native application screen does not establish this scope.
Its outputs specify how people encounter, understand or act on web content; code that only changes server processing is insufficient.
It addresses linked pages or interactive states and browsing conditions, rather than treating appearance as a single fixed composition.
It translates user tasks and content needs into interface decisions; an organisation-wide customer journey study alone belongs to a broader experience-design model.
It can exist before implementation as wireframes, prototypes or specifications, but its decisions must be assessable against an intended web experience.
Scope
+ Website purposes, intended audiences, user tasks and design constraints
+ Content organisation, page relationships, navigation and wayfinding
+ Visual hierarchy, typography, layout and reusable interface patterns
+ Interactive behaviours, feedback and journeys across pages or interface states
+ Responsive and accessible presentation across devices and input methods
+ Design validation, revision and correspondence between intended and delivered experiences
- Backend architecture, database design and server operation
- General software implementation except where it constrains or realises design decisions
- Brand strategy and identity creation beyond their application to web interfaces
- Editorial production and factual verification of website content
- Search marketing, advertising campaigns and commercial strategy
- Native application design except for explicitly shared interface conventions
Characteristics
- Design target
- Informational site, publication, storefront, service portal, web application, mixed, or explicitly described other Different targets require different navigation, content and interaction priorities.
- Supported user tasks
- Links from identified user groups and tasks to relevant pages, journeys and success criteria Makes the purpose of a design decision traceable to something a person needs to accomplish.
- Content and navigation structure
- Relationships among content types, pages, navigation labels, entry points and destinations Allows an agent to assess whether users can locate and understand relevant information.
- Responsive behaviour
- Specified reflow, resizing, reordering, substitution, overflow and navigation changes by browsing condition Records how the experience adapts beyond a single screenshot or device size.
- Interaction state coverage
- Percentage of enumerated required states with specified behaviour; record the state inventory and denominator Exposes missing loading, empty, error, success, focus and recovery experiences.
- Accessibility evaluation state
- Not assessed, partially assessed, assessed with unresolved barriers, or assessed against a named target; include methods and scope Separates design intent from evidence that people using different modes of access can complete tasks.
- Task completion evidence
- Completion rate and time in seconds for named tasks, with participant context, sample size and test conditions Supports evaluation of usability without treating an isolated metric as a universal quality score.
- Design maturity
- Exploratory, specified, prototyped, evaluated, delivered, or under revision; record state per artefact Distinguishes proposals from decisions that have been tested or implemented.
Also called
Where this came from
wikidata · CC0 1.0
Drafted structure
Bundle to layer to finding to question, as the second pass will find it: 6 bundles · 11 layers · 18 findings · 28 questions.
Web purpose and task fit Connects the website's intended role to the people, tasks and constraints its design must serve.
An agent needs to distinguish purposeful interface decisions from visual preferences unsupported by the website's use.
Audiences and entry contexts
Records who arrives, where they enter and what they need from the web experience.
User task and entry map
Record intended user groups, priority tasks and plausible entry pages, distinguishing observed behaviour from assumptions.
- Which tasks should each intended user group be able to complete, including when arriving directly on an internal page? definition
- What research, service evidence or stakeholder assumption supports each audience and entry-context claim? provenance
Design success and constraints
Defines desired outcomes and the conditions that limit feasible web design choices.
Web design decision criteria
Record task success criteria and constraints imposed by content, branding, existing platforms and delivery conditions.
- What observable result would show that the proposed page or journey supports its intended task? measurement
- Which design choices can change, and which depend on decisions owned by content, brand or engineering teams? boundary
Content structure and wayfinding Models how web content is grouped, labelled, connected and exposed through navigation.
A visually coherent site can still fail when users cannot locate a destination or understand where they are.
Page and content organisation
Captures content groupings, page purposes and relationships among destinations.
Content-to-page allocation
Record which content belongs on each page or template and why its grouping supports a user task.
- What distinct purpose does each page or template serve, and which content is necessary for that purpose? definition
- Where do duplicated, fragmented or missing content groups obstruct a task, and should pages be merged, split or linked? action
Navigation and location cues
Captures routes to destinations and cues that explain the current location.
Destination findability
Record navigation labels, links, search entry points where applicable, and evidence that users can interpret them.
- Can users locate priority destinations from relevant entry pages using the proposed labels and routes? measurement
- Which location cues and return routes remain available on deep pages and compact navigation layouts? definition
Visual composition and responsive behaviour Models the visible organisation of pages and its adaptation to changing content and display conditions.
Web layouts must communicate priority while accommodating variable viewports, text sizes and content lengths.
Visual hierarchy and patterns
Records how typography, spacing, colour and repeated components convey meaning and priority.
Page hierarchy and pattern consistency
Record intended reading order, primary actions and reusable visual patterns, including justified exceptions.
- Which information and actions should receive attention first, and how does the composition communicate that order? definition
- Which repeated elements share a design-system pattern, and what task-specific reason supports each exception? provenance
Layout adaptation and content stress
Specifies behaviour when viewport dimensions, text settings or content size change.
Responsive transformation rules
Record how page regions, navigation and controls reflow or transform, including overflow and long-content cases.
- How do layout, navigation and action placement change as available space narrows or text grows? definition
- Under which tested combinations of viewport, zoom and content length do clipping, overlap or unusable controls occur? measurement
Interaction and inclusive access Models task behaviour across interface states and access through different input and perception modes.
Static compositions do not establish whether a web experience can be operated, understood or recovered from when something goes wrong.
Task flows and feedback
Records user actions, state transitions, feedback and recovery within web journeys.
Interaction state and recovery specification
Record the states and transitions required for links, forms and interactive components, including navigation history where relevant.
- What should users see and be able to do before, during and after each action, including loading, empty, error and success states? definition
- How can users correct input, retry a failed action or return to an earlier step without unexpectedly losing their work? action
Access modes and barriers
Records requirements and evidence for perceiving, understanding and operating the interface through different access modes.
Equivalent task access
Record keyboard and touch operation, focus behaviour, semantic requirements, text alternatives and presentation barriers with an explicit assessment scope.
- Can priority tasks be completed using keyboard navigation and relevant assistive technologies, and what evidence supports the assessment? measurement
- Which design revisions address barriers involving focus, labels, contrast, motion, target size or information conveyed only visually? action
Validation and delivered experience Connects design alternatives and revisions to evaluation evidence and the behaviour of delivered pages.
An agent must distinguish design assumptions, prototype results and implementation outcomes before recommending further changes.
Prototype and task evaluation
Records what was tested, with whom, under which conditions and with which limitations.
Design evidence and revision
Record observations against named tasks and design versions, then connect proposed revisions to those observations.
- Which design version, tasks, participants and browsing conditions produced each evaluation result? provenance
- Which observed difficulties justify a revision, and what follow-up evaluation would show whether it helped? action
Implementation correspondence
Checks whether delivered web pages preserve specified layout, interaction and access behaviour.
Delivered design discrepancies
Record consequential differences between design intent and delivered pages, including behaviour under slow loading or unavailable resources.
- Where do delivered pages diverge from specified content hierarchy, responsive rules, interaction states or access requirements? measurement
- Which discrepancies require a design revision, and which require implementation or content correction by a neighbouring owner? boundary
Evidence and external alignment What the world already says about this thing, gathered so the model can be checked against it.
A model that cannot be lined up against existing standards, identifiers and practice cannot be adopted by anyone who already uses them.
Reported evidence
Findings from the breadth pass, kept separate from the structural claims.
Check these first
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- The activity sense is inferred from the domain code and name; no registry definition was supplied.
- The listed kinds are overlapping areas of practice, not a mutually exclusive taxonomy.
- Standards are named from recall; applicability, editions and jurisdiction-specific obligations require verification.
- Which of these check these first hold for the sense of web design this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Kinds and varieties
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Visual interface design
- Responsive web design
- Adaptive web design
- Interaction design for web interfaces
- Information architecture for websites
- Accessible web design
- Which of these kinds and varieties hold for the sense of web design this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Standards and regulation
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), issued by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
- HTML Living Standard, maintained by the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG).
- Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) specifications, developed by W3C.
- Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA), issued by W3C.
- ISO 9241-210, Human-centred design for interactive systems, issued by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
- Which of these standards and regulation hold for the sense of web design this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Real-world use
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Organising content and navigation so visitors can find information.
- Designing online purchasing, booking and registration flows.
- Presenting organisational identity through typography, colour and layout.
- Making interfaces usable across screen sizes and input methods.
- Supporting access for people using assistive technologies.
- Which of these real-world use hold for the sense of web design this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Typical measurements
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Task completion rate in usability testing - 0-100% possible; desirable performance depends on the task and user population. - %
- Time required to complete a specified task - No universal typical range; compare equivalent tasks and testing conditions. - seconds
- Text-to-background contrast ratio - 1:1-21:1 possible; this is the scale's extent, not an observed typical range. - dimensionless ratio
- Which of these typical measurements hold for the sense of web design this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Failure modes and hazards
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Unclear navigation or content hierarchy prevents users from finding information or completing tasks.
- Insufficient contrast, missing labels or inaccessible interactions exclude users with disabilities.
- Layouts fail when text is enlarged, screens are narrow or content changes.
- Deceptive interface patterns steer users into unintended purchases, disclosures or subscriptions.
- Heavy visual assets and disruptive motion impair usability, especially on constrained devices or connections.
- Which of these failure modes and hazards hold for the sense of web design this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Regional variation
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Writing direction, scripts and text expansion affect typography, navigation and layout.
- Date formats, number formats, address structures and cultural conventions require localisation.
- Accessibility, privacy and consumer-protection obligations vary by jurisdiction.
- Which of these regional variation hold for the sense of web design this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Web development - Web design specifies presentation and interaction; web development implements working web systems, although practitioners and tasks often overlap.
- Graphic design - Graphic design concerns visual communication across media; web design additionally addresses browser-based interaction and adaptable interfaces.
- User experience design - User experience design addresses the broader experience of a product or service; web design concerns its website or web-interface component.
- User interface design - User interface design applies to interactive systems generally; web design is specific to the web and can also include content organisation.
- Information architecture - Information architecture focuses on organising, labelling and connecting information; web design also specifies visual presentation and interaction.
- Which of these neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart hold for the sense of web design this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
What the second pass must settle
- Does the registry intend web design to cover the professional discipline as well as the activity, or should this ACT model remain limited to activities and their artefacts?
- Where should web design end and broader user-experience or service design begin for journeys that cross websites, native applications and offline services?
- Which accessibility targets and evaluation methods apply to a particular deployment, audience and jurisdiction?
- What evidence is sufficient to judge task suitability when representative users or a functioning implementation are unavailable?
- How should competing user needs, organisational objectives, visual identity and delivery constraints be prioritised when no design satisfies all of them?