The advent of cloud computing, eCommerce, Web 2.0, the growth of mobile apps and the introduction of HTML5 — a standard that’s still under development — have all had a huge impact on web design and the tools to implement it. Not only do web developers now have to deal with browser interpretation issues, but they also have to build sites that smoothly adapt to a range of different form factors. Pages must present equally well on a smartphone or tablet screen, in either vertical or horizontal mode, as they do on a large, wide-screen, desktop display.
The entire business of website creation has changed and now encompasses a range of disciplines — graphic design, web design, programming, system integration, audio editing and video editing, for example. Larger commercial web sites use Content Management Systems (CMS) such as Drupal and Joomla! along with a variety of programming tools and languages — including PHP, Ruby on Rails and JavaScript — to provide custom features.