Testing web sites
As a class, Ben, Raylene, Robyn, Marc, Brendan, Alyssa and Sam came up with the following areas for testing to be performed within the site: Link checks (on site, off site and eMail) Speed Search engine placement & optimisation Accessibility Images Multimedia Audience Accuracy Readability Page size & browser compatbility Hits & other data These items all have areas to be checked against…. What are your thoughts on what criteria should be placed on the testing for each area, and how can you test them?
Web Accessibility and Usability Standards
Are there standards that we can apply to our web sites so that we have a site that is accessible to a broad range of users and usable by people with a wide range of skills and knowledge?… What could be ten key points from standards around the globe that should be applied to your web site design and implementation?
Tutorial – Albino black sheep – CSS Live Design
OK, please follow this tutorial through and you will be surprised what you will see from the code and examples.
Assessment 2006 S1 – Site Design & Site Implementation
Please remember to email me as instructed in the assessment outline.This will be the only way to obtain the files required, as I will use the email to verify everyone has got the required files.Note – if you obtain them any other way then I’ll be asking why you did not follow some simple instructions.
Further Links – CSS and more
- CSS Help Pile: Links and Discussion About the Best CSS Resources on the web
- CSS Basics – Making Cascading Style Sheets Easy to Understand
- Writing cross-browser CSS | 456 Berea Street
- Dnevnik eklektika · CSS Stamps
- johnoxton.co.uk: Scalable logos
- SkimCSS – Skim Everything (CSS) Cascading Style Sheet Related!
- 24 ways: Centered Tabs with CSS
- Friendly Bit » Cross-browser strategies for CSS
- Managing HTML and CSS to Keep Clients Happy and Avoid ‘Disaster’ – Part One
- Zimbra™ – Zimbra Ajax Toolkit Download
- Semantic Typography: Bridging the XHTML gap : Journal : Mark Boulton | Information design
- Become a better Standardista | Muffin Research Labs
- PHP + CSS Dynamic Text Replacement (P+C DTR) – CSS Help Pile
- wg:Printing CSS background images (sort of)
- Lightbox JS
CSS Tutorials
After being asked about how do floats work, I found a series of very good tutorials on floats and other concepts that are very important in CSS. You are recommended, no let me make that required to read if you are having problems.
I suggest you look at them in the order I have given them, so that the content builds up and you become familiar with the techniques involved.
Selectutorial at maxdesign shows the various ways to use selectors in CSS.
Listutorial investigates the use of CSS and lists.
Floatutorial is simple superb and shows you basics through to more advanced concepts.
Building a page template in CSS shows the steps in creating a web page template from the starting mock up to the finished product. Especially useful for the “personas plus” development you are undertaking.
From tables to full CSS shows a method of converting a tables based site layout to use CSS.
Basic web standards workshop shows you the basics of web standards and their use. There are seven parts to the workshop, covering content that includes: Web Standards, What are Web Standards about, and the ideal page structure. (X)HTML and the XHTML dilemma. Semantic markup. Accessibility and why we should bother with it. An introduction to CSS, including why use CSS to separate content from presentation, grouping selectors, shorthand rules, selectors, inheritance and the cascade. Floats and their use including basic float rules, is width required on floats, and floating multiple images to right edge. CSS issues and bugs including margin collapse, trapping margins and IE and the box model to name but a few
Liquid layouts, the joy, pain and tears looks at some of the troubles and pitfalls associated with creating a liquid layout in CSS.
Page source order and accessibility is a presentation that covers one of the most fundamentally important aspects of accessible semantic web design.
CSS Image text wrap shows one way of achieving uneven image wrapping.
Read and use the information here to assist you in your work on the Personas Plus page you are developing.
Aside: a comprehensive HTML tutorial is also found at tizag.com where also you can find a CSS tutorial as well. Note that the HTML tutorial is really aimed at HTML 4 and not XHTML which is what you are required to use for this course.
Navigating a site
When using web sites we encounter a large number of types of navigation methods. These include:
- Lists
- Breadcrumbs
- Tabs
- Drop downs
- Multi level tabs (usually horizontal tabs with a submenu)
- Hierarchical, and
- Pagination
This is not all the list as Ben Hunt shows on his pages about navigation models.
Problem: Identify two examples for each type of navigation and explain (in one or two sentences) why you believe they are that type of navigation model.
For example:
Could be a tabbed menu, or a horizontal top bar. This is because the menu contains a list of items across the page. The items are highlighted when the mouse rolls over. The current “area” is highlighted by an underline.
is most probably a list of contents. This is because there is a list of items that may be accessed by clicking on the links. Visited and active links are also highlighted.
Both these navigation types were displayed on the site “465 Berea Street” [visited: 07/03/2006]
What sites have you found and what navigation types?
Site design
I discovered a very good web site on site design, methods and development.
Ben Hunt, the principle consultant at scratchmedia has given me permission to use the site, and I thank him for that. The content is in the Creative Commons licensing form.
We’ll be using Web Design from Scratch as one of the places to refer to as it keeps things short and simple.
Logo Design Competiton
James is looking for a logo design for the edublogs.org site…… Coming soon: ‘Call for Plugins’, edublogs logo design competition and more (and better) customizable themes.
