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Interactive web design takes building web pages and web sites beyond just coding. It moves it to functionality and usability. It focus' on meeting the needs of the customer or user. Let's look at Miami's vacation reporting site in Banner. I can report my vacation and sick time so it's functional but entering time is more cumbersome than it needs to be. See how the next and previous button move. Why can't I see the whole month at once? Why isn't there a dropdown option to select the time allowed? Whenever you have to use words like “make sure do it this way”, you know that you have failed on a usability standpoint.
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Progressive disclosure is an interaction design technique often used in human computer interaction to help maintain the focus of a user's attention by reducing clutter, confusion, and cognitive workload. This improves usability by presenting only the minimum data required for the task at hand.
An example of the use of progressive disclosure is our class website. Menu options are in place to allow students to find what they're looking for. Everything could all be on one page but that would be too much. There's also the option to “Show the entire syllabus” or view one class at a time, allowing the student to see the information the way they want to see it.
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There are several different types of architecture, like Linear, Hierarchy, Web, and Matrix. I don't get heavy into terminology and pedagogy so I just want to address this with the statement that information should be organized and arranged in a way that should be understood. You can look at our class web site to see that the information is lumped together by several categories which happen to be presented as menu options. If you look at my work web page you'll see that it's organized in a very different way. That's because there's a different target audience. In the class site, students are the primary users so things are organized in a way that a student would expect to see the information. Grading is pretty important to a student, so it get's it's own category. My work web page, in contrast is one big page with no menu. That's because I'm the primary user and I use it mainly as bookmarks to get to my favorite sites. Neither way is right or wrong, other than they should meet the needs of the target audience.
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The home page is the main landing page for your site. The identity and styles of home pages change over time but in general I feel that they should not include too much information. I'm personally a bit of a minimalist anyway so I prefer very little content on a home page, and use it as a spring board to get to other information. http://www.harrisonlegacy.com/ is a site that I manage. It's a church web site. The primary target of the site is to introduce the church to potential attendees. It's also used by current members which is why the “GIVE ONLINE” link is on the site. I removed it at one point thinking it was a bit rude to a prospective attendee and heard “where did the link go” from many current members. They used it weekly for their offering. So I added it back, but tried to make it inconspicuous.
Apple is a forerunner in design. They're not perfect, but you can generally gage what's popular in current design based on what they're doing. Let's take a peak at their site. Can you tell what Apple feels is most important? It's hard not to, right?
With Google around, users may not go to your home page first. That's why a good menu system is important. Looking at the church site again, you see that you can get to all of the topics that you might be interested in using the menu system from any page.
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Signals basically concern whether or not something makes sense. It could be something as simple as a label or a picture. On cars that take gasoline, there's usually an indicator on the dashboard that shows which side of the car you use to put the gas in; and it's usually a triangle. Now is that enough? The answer lies in the hands of the person filling up the car. If you've pulled in to the gas station on 'the wrong side', I would say it's not enough.
Computers use something called 'icons'. They're little pictures that signal something. On my Mac, I have a dock that I have configured to show small icons, magnify on hover-over, and automatically hide (among other things). The icons were designed by the company that made the program. Apple went the next step and also displays the name of the program when you hover-over it. That's a good way to bridge the gap between a graphical only solution versus a text only solution.
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Anticipation simply means that you should anticipate how the solution that you're providing will be used. The easiest way to do this is to use it. Does it work like you think it should? Second, have someone else try it. Can they figure it out without you there explaining things? To me, the biggest indicator or a failure in anticipation is the need for 'training'. If the user can't figure out how to use your solution on their own, then the solution does not meet their needs.
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Consistency is at the top of my list of important things when it comes to web design. Are you adding on to an existing site? Then follow the style and design previously set. Are you building a site from scratch? Then create your style and follow it throughout the site. If you're a list-person, meaning you like making lists, make the list and be consistent. If you use complete sentences in your list, ALWAYS use complete sentences. If you don't capitalize a certain word like “howdy”, and you have a good reason to do it (like if it's a catch-phrase used throughout the site), then never capitalize it. Just be consistent.
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You may be the smartest person in the world, but if you use bad spelling or have bad grammar, you won't look smart. Your website is a reflection of you. Having typos is just bad. Have a friend check your page/site. Use a tool like Typosaur.us to check your spelling. Whatever you do, don't have typos.
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I'm using a Mac with OS X 10.11 (El Capitan). Most of the shortcuts that I'm going to show you have been around for many years. On a Mac use the 'command' key to use a shortcut. Similar shortcuts are available on other operating systems as well. On a Windows machine, use the 'alt' key where I reference the 'command' key. Here are my favorites:
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You can personalize your Mac so that you can get things done faster. Here are some steps that I follow everytime I setup a new Mac (use 'System Preferences' to make these changes):
Trackpad - turn on everything, then turn off natural scrolling, and turn off swipe between pages
Desktop & Screen Saver - set these and hot corners
Security & Privacy - Require password 5 seconds
Security & Privacy - Unlock and set to 'Mac App Store and identified developers' if you want
Dock - Smaller, Magnification, Double Click a Window's Title Bar to Minimize
Remove icons that I don't use from the dock
Right-click on the icon...options...Remove from Dock
Add Applications Folder to the dock
Click on the background to go to Finder...command N (to open a new folder)...Drag the Applications icon to the dock
Mac Mail - turn off drafts
Mail…Preferences…Accounts…Mailbox Behaviors…(uncheck) Drafts (for each account)
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Since we're using WebDAV, editing and reviewing changes is very fast and easy and since we're using HTML5, CSS3, and PHP in this class, you don't have to wait on compiling anything. I can't believe that people still compile programs. To view changes to a web page, you just reload it. Let's walk through an example:
First, I'll open a web browser, then I'm going to use 'command tab' to switch to the Finder. Then I'll use 'command k' to connect to my web space. Next I'll navigate to the folder and web page that I want to edit. Double-click it to open it, I have PHP files set to open with TextWrangler. Change and save it, 'command tab' to the web browser, 'command r' to reload it. Continue using this method to make changes. Once you practice, you'll be a pro and editing code will be quick and easy.
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Want to open HTML or HTM files with your favorite text editor? On a Mac, navigate to a file of this type in Finder...right-click...Get Info...Open with...(select your favorite text editor)...Change All. That's it.
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Editing code on your local machine is a bad idea for a couple big reasons.
1) It gets confusing. You make changes on your local machine but test the changes for the page on the server but it looks like nothing changed. That's because nothing on the server changed.
2) Reviewing PHP on your local machine isn't that easy. We will be using PHP in the future.
So edit your code on the server. Trust me, you'll be glad you did.
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It's important to know that the rest of the world doesn't necessarily edit web pages with a text editor. Here are some sites that I work on that have different WYSIWYG editors. WYSIWYG stands for 'What You See Is What You Get', an old term that came about as the computer world moved from a text only based world to a graphical based world.
Here's a site that uses a proprietary interface by a company called Elexio. I'll make a simple change and reload the page to review the change.
Here's a site that uses Google. I'll make a simple change and reload the page to review the change.
Here's a Facebook page. I'll make a simple change and reload the page to review the change.
You have a lot more power and control when you're not using someone else's interface, but for people who don't know how to write code, these types of solutions make creating and maintaining a web site something attainable.
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HTML is the content. CSS is the styling. Javascript is an action. The lines are getting more blurred as CSS progresses and becomes more action-oriented. In our class we'll focus on HTML and CSS. We'll also use PHP later in the semester to dynamically build web pages. PHP is very powerful and very cool. Get the HTML and CSS stuff figured out first so you can have fun with PHP when the time comes.
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HTML elements are written with opening and closing tags outside of content in HTML documents. A tag is part of an HTML element.
An opening tag starts with a less than symbol, then has some type of identifier, then ends with a greater than symbol. The closing tag will be very similar, but has a slash after the less than symbol.
If you want something to be bold, use a bold element: This is in bold.
Most elements have an opening and closing tag but there are some that don't like breaks. Some have optional closing tags like list items.
I will be referring to HTML elements as 'tags' throughout this course because that's how I learned them.
Here are some very popular tags:
bold <b>
breaks <br>
paragraphs <p>
unordered lists <ul> and <li> with a closing </ul>
ordered lists <ol> and <li> with a closing </ol>
tables <table> <tr> is the table row, and <td> table data which is the column
images <img src='FolderName/ImageName.jpg' alt='Image Description'>
Don't use spaces in file names on the web, that's just a hint that's going to save you a lot of time and effort.