The process of designing Web pages, Websites, Web applications or multimedia for the Web may utilize multiple disciplines, such as animation, authoring, communication design, corporate identity, graphic design, human-computer interaction, information architecture, interaction design, marketing, photography, search engine optimization and typography.

Involved technologies may include (see Web development):

* Markup languages (such as XHTML and XML)
* Style sheet languages (such as CSS and XSL)
* Client-side scripting (such as JavaScript and VBScript)
* Server-side scripting (such as PHP and ASP)
* Database technologies (such as MySQL)
* Multimedia technologies (such as Flash and Silverlight)

Web pages and Websites can be static pages, or can be programmed to be dynamic pages that automatically adapt content or visual appearance depending on a variety of factors, such as input from the end-user, input from the Webmaster or changes in the computing environment (such as the site’s associated database having been modified).

With growing specialization within communication design and information technology fields, there is a strong tendency to draw a clear line between web design specifically for web pages and web development for the overall logistics of all web-based services.