Unit 4: Building a Web Culture

Unit 4 - All the ways to screw up a website

Assignment

Reading about web design and all the ways projects can go wrong is scary, especially when for this class project the student is the designer, developer, researcher, and content guru.

Creating a strategic plan is starting to gel in my head after reading all the chapters and notes for this week. Outlining the purpose of the page or site,  determining the target audience, and choosing fonts and colors – even before all the history research itself gets done  -- is crucial. A site should be done so that one thing navigates (by clicks) to another that adds more information. But too many clicks to get to something turns off the reader/viewer. Good design, accessibility, and usefulness are important. Content means little if readers/viewers cannot find it. (This font, by the way, is Verdana 12 point but looks bigger.)

From the Web Style Guide comes this:

• Inventory your content: What do you have already? What do you need?
• Establish a hierarchical outline of your content and create a controlled vocabulary so the major content, site structure, and navigation elements are always identified consistently.
• Chunking: Divide your content into logical units with a modular structure.
• Draw diagrams that show the site structure and rough outlines of pages with a list of core navigation links.
• Analyze your system by testing the organization interactively with real users, through card-sorting exercises, paper prototyping, and other user research techniques; revise as needed.

And in the Information Architecture section:

  

"In information architecture you create categories for your information and rank the importance of each piece of information by how general or specific that piece is relative to the whole. … Once you have determined a logical set of priorities and relations in your content outlines, you can build a hierarchy from the most important or general concepts down to the most specific or detailed topics." 

Logic. "Logical function groupings or structural relationships." I am never going to pass this class.

  

The "5 hat racks" (more on structure)

1. Category -  useful when all the things being organized are of equal or unpredictable importance 
2. Organization - by timeline or history, where elements are presented in a sequential, step-by-step manner
3. Location - Organization by spatial or geographic location, most often used for orientation and direction
4.  Alphabetic - Organization based on the initial letter of the names of items
5.  Contunuum - Organization by the quantity of a measured variable over a range, such as price, score, size, or weight. Continuum organization is most effective when organizing many things that are all measured or scored the same way. 

DON'T JUNK IT UP ↵

From sites examined so far, it’s clear that a clean look, with white or light background, and fonts that do not detract from the message are important. Photos and images and buttons (donate, join, etc.) and the menu can add or detract. There is no one way or place for any of these. As some say in the readings, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. A website with yellow background (like the MesoAmerica one shown in Rozensweig) works well, but some people might be put off by it.

C O L O R S

(yeah, that doesn't look so hot) The website

http://sibagraphics.com/utilities/the-meaning-of-colours/

informed me that orange is one of the least favorite colors of Americans. A survey also showed that people associated orange with cheap. It can mean warmth, energy, balance, and many other things. Europeans associate it with “Autumn, creativity, harvest.” I used orange on my blog because I wanted something bold and eye-catching, but not red.

? THOUGHTS? ON SOME WEB CREATION TOOLS

This assignment literally forced me to look at many web tools, but I'm still unsure if I can learn them. If a web editor means you use templates, like a wix or weebly site, that seems simple. Dreamweaver and other tools with more design capabilities seems geared to those who are more into development. What am I not understanding? A basic website with built-in text editor (and database?) is similar to this blog, correct? 

Final Project

I could do a story map with historic cemeteries (details being worked out). It would focus on up to 20 after selecting  some representative of categories that could be expanded in the future (Revolutionary War heroes, Civil War soldiers, Quaker roots, etc.).  

Alternately, I could start a website on the history of one neighborhood using some primary sources (map, deeds, wills, covenants, early residents, traditions).         

HELP! ADVICE NEEDED ON HOSTS, WEBSITES, ETC.

I want to build my webpage but am totally confused about 

1. whether to use the NVCC site for web space, or buy space on GoDaddy.com (or other). NVCC means anyone can see my site?

2. Is it best to do something like GoDaddy so it is private, shared just with class?

3. Can we use a site like wix or weebly, or just KompoZer or other WYSIWYG? It looks like KompoZer provides FTP also.

4. Final project is not a website from any of these, necessarily, correct?
5. Can I use this Blogger blog for a webpage/website? 

I am intimidated by words like code and database. Easy is what I seek.

Thanks.