Hello and welcome to the "Web Design with Dreamweaver" class.
A web design package allows you to build individual web pages and then integrate
them into a web site. There are several good web design tools. Some of the widely
used tools are Microsoft's FrontPage, Adobe's Go Live and Macromedia's Dreamweaver.
The choice of what package to use generally depends on what tool is available
to you. You can certainly get decent results with all the packages mentioned
above. As Deng Xiaoping said "black cat, white cat.it doesn't matter. All
that matters is that it catches mice. "All these packages have their strong points
but in terms of usability and features, Dreamweaver is the top cat. In the following
pages we will be looking at building usable and practical web sites using Dreamweaver.
Before we actually start building a site using Dreamweaver, let's look at some
of the site design issues.
Site Architecture:
People put sites on the Internet to convey some information. Website audiences
over the year have matured and they now have certain expectations out of
a site. One of the most important features the user looks for is the easy
accessibility of information. As websites become larger and information inside
them more complex, it becomes the prerogative of the designer to make the
navigation easy. The information in the site should be logically divided
into sections. A very informative article on Site Architecture (by John Shiple)
is available on the Webmonkey site at http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/design/site_building/tutorials/tutorial1.html (will
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Usability:
Usability looks at issues like user-friendliness of the site. Care should be
taken in the selection of fonts, text -colour and background colours . There
is a growing interest in getting the usability right. Large organizations
often hire usability experts to audit the user-friendliness of their websites.
Sites like Amazon.com and imdb.com are a joy to use as their designers constantly
tweak the sites based on user feedback. For articles and tips on site usability
refer to usability expert Jacob Nielsen's website at www.useit.com .
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Accessibility:
The Internet is about information. As web designers, we should strive to make
our pages accessible to everyone, including those with disabilities. We should
try to make our sites friendly to alternative browsing tools like text browsers
and text to speech plugins. A good place to look for tips on implementing
Accessibility is the WC3's WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative) website at www.w3c.org/WAI/gettingstarted (will
open in a new window)
Copyrights on the Internet:
You may want to use media (text, graphics, video, audio etc.) from someone
else's site. Get permission from them even if their site does not have a
copyright notice. Copying media from other's WebPages (or scanning it from
a printed source or digitizing from a recording) is wrong simply because
1) you may get into trouble and 2) it is unethical. The WWW has made all
of us publishers and whatever you publish immediately becomes available to
millions on the web. Digital watermarking technologies can be used to track
the origin of your media. Also remember that people who put up a site have
spent considerable time and effort building them. As the economies in this
region move towards generating intellectual property it become imperative
that we understand and follow the cyber laws. For a discussion on the laws
and rules please see Oppedahl & Larson LLP's patent.com website at www.patents.com/weblaw.sht .
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A Personal Note:
Over the years of site building, we have realized is that a site is never static.
It needs to be updated all the time. Unfortunately, clients never realize
this. Your client may ask you to build a "cutting-edge" site without
realizing that they do not have the people (with enough Flash or Dreamweaver
knowledge) to update and maintain the pages. We have several examples of "cutting
edge" sites where we spent a lot of effort in designing great graphics
and Flash content. Couple of months later the client needs to update the
site and they started messing it up. The "killer" site becomes
a grotesque site.
Flash intros, Animated Gifs etc. should be avoided. Flash is great for building illustrative and interactive content. Don't build a linear 20 second animation. Every unnecessary feature we add in a site makes it more irritating (and slower) for the user to get to the point. If I have to build a site today, I will keep it simple. A simple page is always easier to update.
Industry figures predict that by the year 2006, more people will go online with their mobile devices (smart phones or PDAs) than with desktop computers. Some of these devices have already started to appear. The small screen size of these mobile devices makes it necessary that we look into making our sites usable and accessible to all.
Q) What is the best way to learn Dreamweaver? (Or for that matter - learning
anything)
A) Teach it to others. After you finish the day's class, go back and teach
it to that brother, that colleague or the cute girl next-door. If you need
help you can always refer back to this site.
Please feel free to e-mail me at preetamrai@yahoo.com with your feedback
or dinner invitations.
Have Fun,
Preetam.
