Introduction to Web Site Design (v1)

Door A Designs > Projects > School > Introduction to Web Site Design (v1)

Dorea M. Hardy

With the rise of technology it has become easier for people to create web sites without having to know HTML. Unfortunately, this ability has also created a problem within the world wide web. Large numbers of poorly designed, difficult to navigate web sites exist now on the web because people think that programs such as Dreamweaver and FrontPage will do all the work for them. However, with a little patience and a willingness to learn and plan before designing, you can create a web site that is easy for all people to access, navigate, and learn from.

Dreamweaver

This list is about Macromedia’s Dreamweaver software used to develop, create, edit, and maintain web pages as well as complete web sites.

FrontPage

This list is about Microsoft’s FrontPage software used to develop, create, edit, and maintain web pages as well as complete web sites. On a side note, this software is in the process of being “put out to pasture” and Microsoft will be releasing a newer program in the near future.

Copyright Examples

If your intellectual property is on the web, you need to copyright it. Use the following websites to learn how to do copyright your material.

  • The UT System Crash Course in Copyright – Find out what copyright is and when/how to use it.
  • The “Copyright Website” – The Internet has been characterized as the largest threat to copyright since its inception. The Internet is awash in information, much of it with varying degrees of copyright protection. Copyrighted works on the net include news stories, software, novels, screenplays, graphics, pictures, Usenet messages and even email. In fact, the frightening reality is that almost everything on the Net is protected by copyright law.
  • Copyright Office Basics – What is copyright? Who can claim it? What’s protected by it? Find out the answer to these questions and more.
  • Web Shoppe | Copyright Notice – An example of a copyright notice.
  • Web Shoppe | Web Design | Internet Copyright – How and why you need a copyright statement on your web site.
  • What is Copyright Protection? – “This page covers the basic definitions regarding copyrights.”
  • Copyright.com – Providing the most complete and convenient access to copyright permission for millions of publications worldwide.
  • Stanford Copyright & Fair Use Center – The Copyright & Fair Use Center from Stanford University Libraries.
  • Association of Research Libraries: Copyright Home – Updating copyright and intellectual property laws to meet the challenges of the networked environment has been a key focus for Congress, the courts, and state legislatures for several years. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, peer-to-peer file sharing and digital rights management, and legislation to create additional protections for databases have dominated the agenda…

Hints and Tips

Hints and tips that other people have discovered about web site creation and are passing on to the rest of the world.

Books

A list of various books which I have found helpful in building web sites!

  • Cascading Style Sheets 2.0 Programmer’s Reference – By: Eric A. Meyer
    “In order to comprehend how CSS affects the presentation of a document, there are some key concepts that must be grasped…”
  • Designing with Web Standards (2nd Edition) – By: Jeffrey Zeldman
    “An equal opportunity disease afflicts nearly every site now on the web, from the humblest personal home pages to the multimillion-dollar sites of corporate giants…”
  • Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability – By: Steve Krug
    Usability design is one of the most important–yet often least attractive–tasks for a Web developer. In Don’t Make Me Think, author Steve Krug lightens up the subject with good humor and excellent, to-the-point examples.
  • More Eric Meyer on CSS (Voices That Matter) – By: Eric A. Meyer
    “Ready to commit to using more CSS on your sites? If you are a hands-on
    learner who has been toying with CSS and want to experiment with real-world projects that will enable you to see how CSS can help resolve design issues, this book is written just for you!”
  • Programming PHP – By: Rasmus Lerdorf, Kevin Tatroe
    “PHP is a simple yet powerful language designed for creating HTML content…”
  • The Zen of CSS Design: Visual Enlightenment for the Web – By: Dave Shea, Molly E. Holzschlag
    “Proving once and for all that standards-compliant design does not equal dull design, this inspiring tome uses examples from the landmark CSS Zen Garden site as the foundation for discussions on how to create beautiful, progressive CSS-based Web sites.”
  • Digital Copyright: Protecting Intellectual Property on the Internet – By: Jessica Litman
    “AMERICAN IDEAS OF FREEDOM ARE bound up with a vision of information policy that counts information as social wealth owned by all…”
  • Ajax For Dummies – By: Steve Ph.D. Holzner
    “Brush up on JavaScript, use free Ajax frameworks, and make your sites rock.”
  • Web Standards Solutions: The Markup and Style Handbook – By: Dan Cederholm
    “Web Standards are the standard technology specifications enforced by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to make sure that web designers and browser manufacturers are using the same technology syntax. It is important that these implementations are the same throughout the Web, otherwise it becomes a messy proprietary place, and lacks consistency. These standards also allow content to be more compatible with multiple different viewing devices, such as screen readers for people with vision impairments, cell phones, PDFs, etc. HTML, XML, and CSS are all such technologies.”
  • Teach Yourself AJAX in 10 Minutes – By: Phil Ballard
    “Sams Teach Yourself Ajax in 10 Minutes is a concise introduction to the basics of building Ajax applications and the architecture and operation of these applications. You will learn the techniques employed in using Ajax, introducing Ajax and explaining how it may be used to solve realistic user interface problems. You will be able to immediately begin building web applications, and will have platform from which to explore more advanced aspects of Ajax.”
  • Web Designer’s Reference – By: Craig Grannell
    “Web Designer’s Reference provides an intriguing, comprehensive reference for Web design, using XHTML, CSS, and presentation-oriented JavaScript. This book is divided primarily in two sections: the Tutorial section, which includes Modular discussion and tutorial-based chapters; and the Reference section, which features essential reference guides to XHTML and CSS.
  • Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflow that Works – By: Kelly Goto, Emily Cotler
    “Anyone who has managed the process of developing or redesigning a Web site of significant size has likely learned the hard way the complexities, pitfalls, and cost risk of such an undertaking.”
  • Patents, Copyrights & Trademarks for Dummies – By: Henri Charmasson
    “What is intellectual property?…”
  • Web Design in a Nutshell – By: Jennifer Niederst
    “This is the rare book for designers that is almost completely nonvisual. It doesn’t show what’s hip in navigational bars or what the coolest colors are. Rather, it gives readers the kind of know-how that can make a difference between someone who just whips up pretty pages with WYSIWYG applications like Dreamweaver and someone who can make those pages cross-platform, cross-browser, fast loading, and accessible to all.”

Accessibility & Usability

Links about web site accessibility and usability. These resources can be extremely beneficial to have if you need to make sure your website is compliant with the law.

HTML

What is HTML? What is it used for? Do I need to be concerned about it? These are all very good questions! Use the links below to find out the answers.

Search Engines

What is a search engine? Why do you need to know about them? How do you get good rankings on them? Use the links below to find out more about Search Engines.

  • Second Generation Searching on the Web – This tutorial covers some of the more innovative search engine services on the Web. It includes a group of search services that make use of technology that organizes search results by peer ranking, or clusters results by concept, site or domain.
  • Ask.com – Ask.com Search Engine
  • Google – Google.com Search Engine
  • Clusty – Clusty the Clustering Engine
  • SurfWax, Inc. – Practical Tools for Finding and Using Information
  • Brainboost Answer Engine – Brainboost actually finds answers to your questions posed in plain English as opposed to directing you to pages that simply mention the questions.
  • Search AllinOne MetaSearch feature – combining the power of all the worlds best search engines into a metasearch

Tutorials

Generalized Web Tutorials – You can never have too many!

  • CSS Tutorial – Save a lot of work with CSS! In this CSS tutorial you will learn how to use CSS to control the style and layout of multiple Web pages all at once!
  • Building a School Web Site – A great step-by-step introduction to learning how to build a complete web site.
  • Build Your Own Website – This site provides information for beginners to advanced web developers.
  • How to Make a Website of Your Own – How to build a great web site and avoid the steep cost of hiring a designer.
  • Creating good websites – This site is the companion to an evening class in which I teach Web design, concentrating on important design skills rather than technical aspects.
  • How To Build Web Sites and Create Your Own Web Pages – The How To Build Web Sites tutorial will teach you how to create, host and market web sites – from the initial concept, to monetizing, design, building, publishing, marketing, right through to web site maintenance.

Articles

The following links are articles related to web design. The standards are changing every day and you find out about it through reading the articles.

  • A Web Page Kit Full of Tools for Beginners – A review on Web Studio 2.0 by The New York Times
  • Real world cross-browser HTML development – Few subjects are as widely debated among developers as browser preference. Unfortunately, regardless of your predilection, you most likely build Web sites that require support for both major browsers. Beginners might assume that this would be an effortless task because both Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer support the HTML standard.
  • How to create a Web site – An article reviewing several books on how to build and maintain a web site.

ERIC (at EBSCOhost)

A list of links to documents that I found on Eric at EBSCOhost.

Misc. Links

A list of random links that are still very important, but just didn’t fit into any specific category

  • Color Wheel Pro – Learn about color theory basics.
  • Whatever:hover – If you’ve learned how to use Style Sheets, this is a great tool/addon for creating hover overs on things other than links. (For use with IE, since the other browsers basically do the hover effects already.)
  • css Zen Garden – The Beauty in CSS Design. A great resource for those interested in learning about Style Sheets.
  • Design for the Web: Learning Page of the Library of Congress – An excellent web site that all people interested in web design should read before actually starting on their first design project!
  • Top Ten List for Web Designers – An extremely good resource for those trying to design and develop curriculum for the web.