The World Wide Web has become a primary source of communication amongst millions of individuals in recent years. Web sites provide collections of web pages that are accessed by individuals for entertainment, education, information exchange, and even online shopping. As a result, more and more businesses have turned to the Internet to market and advertise to potential customers, to disseminate information about their brands to the public, and to accept orders for their products and services.
Traditionally, business web sites were created by computer programmers who “hard coded” the web sites using a combination of programming languages compatible with HyperText Markup Language (HTML). These programmers would create the site by writing lines of software code describing how the web site should look and the content that the web site should contain. The software code would then be uploaded to a server, where it could be assembled into a number of web pages and accessed by visitors to the web site. Depending on the breadth of the site, it could often take many hours to generate a web site in this fashion. Furthermore, it was very expensive for businesses to maintain web sites over time due to the specialized knowledge needed by the programmer to create the various web pages.
As technology progressed and businesses realized the high value of Internet advertising, web sites became more advanced, with more expansive content, multiple linked web pages, and high-end graphics and videos. Due to the high costs involved in hiring web developers to program and code these advanced web sites, software companies created web site development programs capable of automating the web creation process. This software can be used to build web sites either from scratch or from pre-existing templates. For example, a user can select, display, and arrange various web objects, such as text, graphics, media, and the like, through the page, in a “what-you-see-is-what-you-get” fashion. Then, the software development program automatically codes the web page into HTML, without the use of a web developer. HTML provides a way to add structure to the web page documents by providing structural semantics for text such as headings, paragraphs, and lists as well as for links, and other items.
However, users of traditional web site development software face many difficulties. For instance, the user must establish precise uniformity of the web site despite the visual inaccuracies of the “drag and drop” format, requiring intense time, skill, and effort. For example, the user must ensure the correct proximity of display objects, alignment, and consistency of format. With respect to business web sites, the user has to ensure uniformity across multiple, even hundreds or thousands, of linked web pages. Furthermore, this traditional web site development software often does not have the level of complexity required by many of today's businesses that want to integrate advanced functions, such as real-time media, into their web sites. Thus, the web pages and web site could become out-of-date and inconsistent, deteriorating the look and feel of the company web presence, and thus the visitor's impression of the company.
In both preparing hard coding and in preparing web development software, a web software developer is needed to generate the web site in accordance with the objectives of the business. Typically, this means that editors, designers, and product managers, who have the most intimate understanding of the business, are not directly involved with the generation of the web site, and must relay this business information to the web developer. It may take a number of drafts and iterations before the editor or designer is satisfied that the web site created by the developer properly reflects the business desires and objectives for the web site.