Site Development Info...
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Goals for Web authoring that we aspire to:
Topics include HyperText Markup Language (HTML), Design & Style, Cascading
Style Sheets (CSS), Accessibility, Usability, and Web Standardization. |
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Top Ten Resources (for your independent research and benefit)
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- Web Site Design Tips
- Web site design tips for the beginner to the expert. A great collection of classic web site design tips that will build a strong foundation for any new web designer.
- The Web Design Group Reference Section
- Excellent background information and technical details on HTML authoring. Web Design Group.
- Designing for The Web
- A series of informative articles on Web site design, including A Web Site is a Harsh Mistress & Rules of Thumb. The special focus is on complementing Web design skills with competence in interface design. Don't miss Web Site Design. Diane Wilson.
- Useit.com: Usable Information Technology
- An expansive resource on usability and user interface issues -- featuring several extremely challenging and well-researched essays on Web design and style. Jakob Nielsen.
- Understanding HTML
- An outstanding presentation of HTML basics by an Australian with a fine writing style. Dianne Gorman.
- Hints for Web Authors
- A short yet insightful historical analysis of conventional vs. Web publishing, Hints for Web Authors is replete with solid recommendations on how to succeed with the latter, including a few pragmatic suggestions mixed in there for good measure, "...in hopes that others may find 'em useful." Warren Steel.
- Dan's Web Tips
- This huge resource contains a balanced summary review of most of today's important Web authoring topics. Daniel Tobias.
- HyperText Markup Language
- World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) home page for HTML. Here you will find pointers to specifications for HTML, guidelines for how to use HTML to the best effect and pointers to related work at W3C. W3C.
Good Site Design Practices
These tips will help beginners to create highly functional and accessible Web pages. Some of the tips focus on writing valid HTML syntax while others focus on designing pages for "ease-of-use."
General Tips
- Write your pages for multiple types of Web browsers--to provide trouble-free access to the widest possible audience. The World Wide Web is a multi-platform, non-browser specific medium. It should not matter whether people browse your Web pages using Netscape, Explorer, Opera, Lynx, WebTV, NetPhonic's Web-On-Call, Mobile Telephones, or Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs, or palmtops, the little computers with screens the size of a credit card). Each browser ought to render your informational Web pages without problems. If a Web page is designed properly, blind individuals, or anyone using text-to-voice or Braille displays, can easily listen to and review your work.
- Run Web pages through a validator to test their compliance with common HTML (HyperText Markup Language) specifications. Modify pages until they validate, because compliant pages have a better chance of being rendered by various Web browsers, as the writer intends. However, if you intend something that is impractical with HTML, it will be no less impractical for being syntactically valid. Work with the strengths of HTML rather than trying to batter it into a WYSIWYG page design system. (WYSIWYG stands for What You See Is What You Get.)
- Condense textual content to fit the time and attention constraints of today's busy Web users.
- Use small (byte-wise) graphics so graphics load more quickly in graphics-capable browsers. (It is not advisable to use GIFs for everything. It's of the first importance to make the right choice between JPEG and a palette-based format. Avoid blindly choosing GIF and then trying to rescue yourself from the resulting problems.)
- When using graphics, provide textual alternatives for image-disabled or text-only Web browsers and indexing agents. Some people never turn images on.
- Test. Every visitor will see your pages differently. Test your pages with as many browsers and platforms as you can. For example, run pages through a browser like Lynx to see how the "text-only" world sees your documents. Note that search engines are, in effect, text-only browsers. Make documents Lynx-friendly. Try different preferences, color and font settings, and window sizes. Always check how pages look with higher/lower monitor brightness settings.
- For the future, to add presentational effects and Web page style, validate documents at the HTML 4.0 level (for the cleanest possible markup), so pages contain little or no HTML 3.2 presentational markup or proprietary stylistic hacks, and use the World Wide Web Consortium's Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) language to add stylistic effects to your pages.
- Spell check and proof-read your documents.
- Establish a routine for locating and fixing broken internal and external Web site links.
- Include contact information and a copyright notice.
- If your Web site URL or email address will change occasionally, consider using a service that provides email forwarding and URL redirection.
- Submit your Web site address to an appropriate newsgroup for a critical peer review.
- Promote your Web site by adding your Web address to search engine indices and subject directories. To ensure that people can easily find your Web site, it may be necessary to modify your pages to take best advantage of current search technologies.
Special Tips...
- Be aware of the pitfalls of character sets. (Here comes a pound sign £ what did you get?) Currency signs are a real danger. It might be safer to write the currency in full. It is not just the signs that fail in some way; even those that do display may be misinterpreted. Let's say you are in the USA and write $25.00 without qualification. How much does that look like to a browser in Australia, Canada, or Hong Kong? If the local $ is worth more than the US$ then you risk someone dismissing a product as overpriced. If the local $ is less, your strangely eager customer may suddenly turn sour when she or he thinks you have been deliberately misleading.
- If you specify a background color or image, but don't specify text and link colors, the user's text and link colors will be used against your background. In some cases, there won't be contrast between the user's text and link colors and your background color or image, so your text and links will disappear. The rule of thumb is that if you set one color, then you need to set them all.
