lecture 6: lecture intro

So far we have looked at four main web design techniques (or families of techniques):

• text formatting
• links
• tables
• and images.

Plus, of course, the non-HTML issue of style, which in a way intermingles with all of them. What you may not have realised is that you now have all you need to design for the WWW.

What this does not necessarily mean is that you know how to design well. In the first place, becoming a good web designer takes practice, as is true of so many things in this world. Second, there are ways to enhance your use of the basic techniques, and these are examined in the various options you can take as part of Web Design (and which you will start learning in week 7).

As well as these, however, you need to realise that using the WWW medium well is not always about introducing new, complicated or flashy techniques into your site. The more complex and advanced your site, the less accessible it may be - if written badly. Harking back to lecture 1, you may remember me saying that the main reason Tim Berners-Lee's original system became popular at CERN was that it did not force the users of diverse systems to change their habits in order to use it. Rather, the system was flexible enough to accommodate this diversity.

It is very important to realise that, as a web designer, it is your responsibility to adapt your design to fit diverse browsers, rather than expecting your readers to change. This statement and its consequences are explored in the first part of this lecture which deals with accessibility.

We will also consider the more general issue of usability, in other words, how you can make your web site as easy to use as possible (and why you should do this).

Then we will return to some of the things you need to be aware of when publishing your page: specifically, some of the laws which apply here, and how to make it easier for people to find your site.

Finally we will discuss some of the issues around the week 8 course work. It will help if you have to hand your feedback from the week 4 work.