Web design in Ukraine

Our planet is populated by more that 3 000 different nations. Each nation has its own peculiarities and its own ideas about the world around us. Just as each national cuisine has its specific smell, taste and color, national approach to web design also has its specific features. As far as web design in Ukraine in particular is concerned, it is not devoid of national color as well. Ukrainian websites are made by the Ukrainians and for the Ukrainians. This fact influences web design in Ukraine.

Our national experience in the sphere of web design is yet very tiny in comparison with the western countries. Tim Berners-Lee created his first website in 1991 (some sources even claim, that this site was created in 1990). However in 1991 first Ukrainian Internet providers were just starting to appear. Active development of web design in Ukraine started only in 1999. Unfortunately, a very small number of Ukrainian organizations could boast the presence of computers (not to mention computers with Internet access) at that moment. By the analogy of Runet Ukrainian segment of the World Wide Web is called UAnet or Ukrnet. Today there are more than 10 000 000 of Ukrainian users on the Internet. However, conservative thinking of some fellow countrymen in respect of Internet can still sometimes put the brakes on progressive ideas in web design.

Motivation is one of the key moments during development of a website. Today practically every company seeks to create its own website, though such question as “What for?” remains open in many cases. Western companies have learned to demarcate the main goals and tasks of website development long ago; they know exactly what they need the site for. Whereas typical motivation of some Ukrainian organizations is “to have a site just to have it” (as far as commercial websites are concerned). We can't assert it one hundred percent, but in many cases websites are really created for no special reason – the owner just follows the advice of his partners and client or follows the example of his competitors. There is another situation which is no less widespread. The clients charge web designers with stuffing a website with various special effects because “it should be nice”, but they forget about the high-quality content.

Denis Borodaev, who has an academic degree in art criticism, devoted one of his articles to the formation of an “ethnic” style model of web design in the context of globalization. He claims that the main feature of the model of “ethnic” web design is the arrangement of navigation elements. Vertical menus on the left or horizontal menus in the top part of the page are traditional for Ukraine as well as for the whole Europe. It has already become practically an axiom, and the users themselves can hardly perceive navigation elements that are located on the places which are considerably different from the traditional ones.

It is also known that most of Ukrainian clients prefer to deal with small web studios or single web masters. It happens so by some reasons. Firstly, large professional web design studios are really very few. Secondly, this studios offer their services at very high prices. Most of average men cannot believe that a website can cost so much. However, there is no wonder that people do not hurry to spend their had-earned money in return to obscure promises. Our domestic economics has given us so many unpleasant surprises that we cannot afford ourselves to spend a lot of money when the honesty of a webmaster the quality of result is not guaranteed at all.

There is one more characteristic feature of Ukrainian organization. Owners and directors of some companies consider that it is not difficult at all to make a website. They think that website development does not require a skilled specialist that is why they can entrust in to a young and enthusiastic trainee who hardly knows the basics of web design. Whereas development of a really profitable commercial website needs a whole team of professionals. It should consist of specialists in graphics design, web programming and html layout (html coding). Beside these specialists the team should include experienced marketing specialists and managers. Only joint efforts of the whole team can carry the owner of the site forward. Besides, even if an enthusiastic trainee manages to create a worthy website himself, a single person just will not be able to maintain and efficiently update it. Even a good website will be pensioned off if it is not maintained and regularly updated with interesting and unique content.

Ukrainian legislation in the sphere of intellectual property in general and intellectual property in web design in particular is also very young. Ukrainian Law on Copyright and Related Rights defines web design (to be more precise – program code of an HTML page) as a literary work (other software products are defined the same way). Thereby this law does not take into account the specifics of this kind of intellectual property to the full. Consequently, individuals who steal information from other people's websites practically cannot be punished by law.

So let us sum everything up and single out the main features of web design in Ukraine once more:

• arrangement of navigation elements is traditional for Europe and America;
• presence of ethnic elements and national symbols is not widespread (with the exception of websites which specialize in this topic);
• the service of professional web design is relatively young in Ukraine in comparison with the Western countries;
• motivation of many Ukrainian clients who order web design services is quite vague;
• clients who want to order Ukrainian web design prefer to deal with single webmasters or small web design studios rather than large studios.

Despite certain pessimism of opinions about web design in Ukraine, it is still actively developing, gaining new experience, becoming more and more asked-for. Maybe it is features of Ukrainian web design that will soon become a model of trendy web design all over the world!

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web design, web design in ukraine, ukrainian sites, web designers, web design features, website creation, website development in ukraine