Where can i get a good guideline/suggestion on designing a complex website?

Question

Am in the process of building an enterprise web application and i know its gonna be very complex especially the workflow and navigation process.

I intend to use django as my framework and mysql as the backend database. Am looking at an application with over 300 tables!!! (its an app i had already done as a desktop application and am planning to convert it to a web app)

I know web design is a different when it comes to designing things like user interfaces and navigation, i was just wondering are there tools, guidelines or suggestion that can help me to design the workflow and navigation maps easily? tools to help me manage the complexity? i.e.

• How do i build my navigation map?
• How do i pick color schemes easily?
• What kind of rules are there for a web enterprise application?

Gath

Answer 1

300 tables sounds like way too many. Are you dealing with over 300 different types of information or objects?

Navigation flow is a product decision. Good UI design is important. Read up on Human User Interface Guidelines.

There are plenty of color pickers available on line. Stick to about 7-10 colors that work together. Best practices for text heavy colors are black text on white background, designers may disagree, but studies do not.

Rules are determined by your needs, and are called Business Rules for that reason. Basics are that you probably want something scalable and easily maintainable. Something designed well, something that anticipates needs and is SECURE.

Answer 2

If you developing enterprise web application you have basically two options.

1. HTML, JavaScript (AJAX) and others technologies
2. Adobe Flex (Flash), MS Silverlight or JavaFX

I think 300 tables in django is OK, but you can try little bit optimalization, because in ORM one table = one object and tables for their relationships.

Answer 3

This site http://www.sensible.com/ and the book Steve Krug wrote are excellent guides

Answer 4

You're facing a very hard issue. I've struggled with this same problem many times. I don't know about PHP frameworks, but to my knowledge no Java web app framework has out-of-the-box solutions for the eterprise-y issues like breadcrumbs and common/area/page specific navigation etc.

What I've found helpful is Web App "design patterns" and Look and Feel guidelines. The one's I've found most useful are:

• YAHOO Design Pattern Library: http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/
• Oracle's Browser Look and Feel guidelines: http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/blaf/index.html

Googling yields many similar "handbooks".

The most useful Color picking tool's I've used have been

• Javascript Color Wheel: http://design.geckotribe.com/colorwheel/
• HP UK Colour wheel: http://h41139.www4.hp.com/uk/en/online_tools/colour_wheel.html

Answer 5

I may get flamed for this opinion, but I think that the most helpful thing for you will be to adopt an agile approach to this project. That is, set up your entire development environment and do all your planning based on the idea that you will be changing the way everything works drastically, several times over the course of the project. (Not all at once, of course; this week you might replace the templating system, next week you might change how you navigate the site, and so on.)

Let me explain why. You're starting a significant and complex project in a domain where you have little experience. Figuring out good practices from books and so on is hard: you don't really understand them until you've implemented them yourself, usually a few times. Further, you'll be presented with a huge array of good designs and good things to do, figuring out which ones apply to you is extremely difficult without experience.

So look at your first few months on this project as learning how to build it, rather than building the final product. That what it will be regardless, and with luck the agile approach will allow you to deliver enough as you learn to keep the clients happy, and give you a system where you can, without too much pain, remove your inevitable bad mistakes and replace them with something better.

Answer 6

As far as color schemes go, you may want to check these out:

http://www.colorotate.org/ http://www.colourlovers.com/