Summary of Web Design Course Content

to understand the relevance of the development of the Internet and the World Wide Web to the structure and design of web pages
to consider the concept of good design and recognise that design has to be relevant to its purpose and is also a matter of personal taste
to be able to design a web page on paper, to transfer the design to the screen, and upload the finished project to a webserver
to understand what kind of images are appropriate for use on a web page and be able to optimise images and insert them on web pages
to understand the need for website navigation and to make hyperlinks within a webpage, between 2 pages on the same site and to an external website
to know how to use the Web in order to obtain web page resources and develop further skills

design should be relevant to purpose of site
beware outlandish colour schemes, audio that cannot be switched off, images that take too long to download, horizontal scrolling
use a table/grid to fix web page elements in place

Set up a folder (container for keeping all elements of web page together)
Avoid uppercase characters and spaces in filenaming
Concept of webpage as a jig-saw and all pieces being put together in the browser

*.jpg, *.gif, and *.png are all usable file types on web pages, but note compuserve patent on *.gif images
optimise image in image editing software rather than trying to re-size in web-editor - need to create small files to minimise download times
images on web-sites are protected by copyright - as far as possible create own images
a good free image editor is Irfan View - can be downloaded from the Web

every website needs some form of navigation between pages and back to the home page - may be achieved in different ways, but needs to be considered at the design stage
links within a page require an anchor to be dropped and a link made to that anchor, eg an anchor at the top of the page and a link at the bottom to return to the anchor
links between pages must be relative, not absolute
links to external sites must be complete, that is include the "http://" part of the address

lots of free graphics, buttons, javascript, counters, etc, can be downloaded - try searching
many tutorials online
freeware and shareware web and image editing programs

Have fun and let me have your URL once you have a web presence