Part II <back to part i>

Begin to think about the ways your group might design its site visit web site, and exchange ideas via e-mail, IM, etc.

1) Remember four basics of user-friendly web site design:-

• You are designing for a screen, not for a page. A screen is wider than it is long: a page is longer than it is wide. Think of ways to minimize scrolling (a residue of design for print) and to maximize the use of linking (the movement of choice in hypertext)
• Use margins to control the length of your line. To add margins quickly, highlight your text and then use the indent button several times, until you have created the width of margins your text requires. For greater control over your layout, use a table to hold your text and graphics in place.
• Choose background colors/images and text colors/sizes/fonts that complement each other. If you let your text and background fight for visual dominance, most readers will go away.
• Do not infringe copyright conventions, either for visual material or for textual material. In-text citations, a list of works cited or a bibliography, and captions and/or a list of sources for graphics/photographs/artwork are all required.

You will also find refresher instructions on the use of Netscape Composer 7 on Professor Montecino's page

2) Look at some of the individual and group web projects below. Note down and exchange ideas about what you might learn from them. We have used projects developed by New Century College students.

Garrett Cook: Analyze Multimedia Texts
This writer uses a very simple table layout - one single-column, single-row table for each section of the analysis. He uses margins within the table to create space around the text which renders the text much more easy to read.

Luan Nguyen: Mini-Assignments
Look at the individual mini-assignments under the main title, MINI-Reports. Note four key elements of the design:

• the controlled, easy-to-read line length
  
• the breaking-down of each long analysis into a number of screens (with next and back links to aid navigation) to minimize scrolling
• the inclusion of a list of all the sections in an analysis at the top of each screen
  
• the use of color and graphics to enhance meaning, to complement each analysis and trigger a receptive mood in the reader
  

Blogging
This five-person project looks like a group project, instead of a series of individual projects linked together. The coherent design extends right across the site, and assures the reader that s/he is still within the same analysis. The navigation (provision of all necessary links for readers to move comfortably and easily about the site) is excellent.

Distance Learning
Another group project where all the individuals' contributions melded seamlessly into a single, coherent project, with unified layout, consistent use of graphics, and highly readable text. The students who created this project had very little web publishing experience when they embarked on this project, but their ingenuity and clarity more than compensated for lack of experience.