Animation. You do not need very much, if any, animation on your site unless the animation is the purpose of the site. Are you making cartoons or music videos? Then movement on the site makes sense. But, if you are making a gallery or professional portfolio site then avoid needless distractions such as movement.
Complicated. Modern web site design is far more complex than just five years ago. On one side things are a little easier because there are various "norms" that are expected in site designs. Modern "Web 2.0" sites have a fairly common high-level appearance and structure. This is because people now expect this type of layout on sites. Look for books and sites that talk about designing around "web standards". This includes using XHTML, CSS, and DOM/JavaScript in browser independent ways.
Browser independence. One complication that still exists is designing a site to be browser independent. With some research showing that Firefox makes up 20% of the browser space (higher among technical users), there is no longer any excuse to create Internet Explorer only sites.
Furthermore, web design must face other issues that did not exist 5 years ago: (a) accessibility, or how friendly the site is to those with certain disabilities, (b) community, or how will people interact with the site, (c) mobility, or how will the site appear on small screens of iPhone etc, (d) security, or how will you protect user personal information and how will you protect your intellectual property, and much more.
Dreamweaver. The Adobe product is very good. Hopefully you have CS3 or later, because these versions do a better job of supporting the latest web standards. Still poor on JavaScript and not much help for back-end scripting.
Perl. Perl is a scripting language that runs on the web host (server). It is used to dynamically build web pages (HTML). Few sites use Perl. The more popular host-based scripting language is PHP or Ruby. You will find more products available, such as WordPress and Drupal, that are written in PHP.
JavaScript. JavaScript is a scripting language that runs in the browser (client). It is used to provide dynamic functionality within the browser on the user's desktop, whether connected to the web host or not. JavaScript has become a critical factor in moving processing off the server to the client's workstation. All "Web 2.0" web sites leverage JavaScript heavily on the web pages delivered to the browser.
Purpose. Remember, the first step is to decide what you want to accomplish with the web site. Then aim for that purpose. A portfolio site is way different than a shopping site.
Alas, poor Vicki's web site. The classic example of "shoemaker's children". Spending time doing other people's sites and such that my child goes with the many year old hand-me-downs. *smile*
Complicated. Modern web site design is far more complex than just five years ago. On one side things are a little easier because there are various "norms" that are expected in site designs. Modern "Web 2.0" sites have a fairly common high-level appearance and structure. This is because people now expect this type of layout on sites. Look for books and sites that talk about designing around "web standards". This includes using XHTML, CSS, and DOM/JavaScript in browser independent ways.
Browser independence. One complication that still exists is designing a site to be browser independent. With some research showing that Firefox makes up 20% of the browser space (higher among technical users), there is no longer any excuse to create Internet Explorer only sites.
Furthermore, web design must face other issues that did not exist 5 years ago: (a) accessibility, or how friendly the site is to those with certain disabilities, (b) community, or how will people interact with the site, (c) mobility, or how will the site appear on small screens of iPhone etc, (d) security, or how will you protect user personal information and how will you protect your intellectual property, and much more.
Dreamweaver. The Adobe product is very good. Hopefully you have CS3 or later, because these versions do a better job of supporting the latest web standards. Still poor on JavaScript and not much help for back-end scripting.
Perl. Perl is a scripting language that runs on the web host (server). It is used to dynamically build web pages (HTML). Few sites use Perl. The more popular host-based scripting language is PHP or Ruby. You will find more products available, such as WordPress and Drupal, that are written in PHP.
JavaScript. JavaScript is a scripting language that runs in the browser (client). It is used to provide dynamic functionality within the browser on the user's desktop, whether connected to the web host or not. JavaScript has become a critical factor in moving processing off the server to the client's workstation. All "Web 2.0" web sites leverage JavaScript heavily on the web pages delivered to the browser.
Purpose. Remember, the first step is to decide what you want to accomplish with the web site. Then aim for that purpose. A portfolio site is way different than a shopping site.
Alas, poor Vicki's web site. The classic example of "shoemaker's children". Spending time doing other people's sites and such that my child goes with the many year old hand-me-downs. *smile*
Reply
Leave a comment