Purpose of websites

A website is an online-accessible collection of pages, containing information that is presented using HTML.

Websites can be intended to service various different needs:

• As a static record of events
• As a dynamically updated set of events
• Data collection
• Data retrieval
• Communication
• Advertising

Over the past 10-15 years, Web 2.0 has become something of a catchphrase; it refers to the ability of users to create the content for web sites, rather than a developer. For instance, instead of a company generating all of the content on a web page, the users who visit the site can sign in and submit information to it – think Facebook, WordPress, forums and blogs and so on.

As with any product, a target audience is likely to be identified.

User requirements include the standard set of being user-friendly, consistent, navigable, along with the ability to be customised and flexible.

Product or service based

Websites broadly fall into one of these two categories. A product-based website is one that sells something, or pushes a particular product – for instance, a news website.

Service-based websites provide a service which may be used by an end user, or may be used within other applications. Many weather websites provide a RESTful API that users or developers can subscribe to which provides access to their data.