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(855) 520-6806
CONTACT US
(855) 520-6806
Course Code: dew
This course is different from most Web creation courses you'll find because it's not designed to teach you the mechanics of creating a Web page or how to use a particular software program. Instead, it's designed to help you take your website creations to the next level by enhancing both design and functionality. You'll discover what attracts visitors to a website, and how to use design tools such as typography, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and multimedia to captivate visitors and keep them coming back.
Visitors are attracted by good design, but content is what keeps them at the site longer and motivates them to return. Learn how to use two tools to attract and retain visitors: design critiques and a content inventory. Explore the six major development stages that yield expert design and smart content. Then study the three parts of Web design and the skills you'll need for each.
By now, you probably understand that an interface is the screen visitors see and use when they visit any page of your site. Designing an interface is easy. Designing an effective interface, however, is more challenging. There are four main elements that you'll need to consider to make your site user-centric: usability, visualization, functionality, and accessibility. Explore each of these elements to see the thought that goes into effective interface design.
Even if your basic content is accurate, attractive, and well written, your site won't function well without a solid and logical organizational foundation. Review the five basic steps involved in organizing information and four essential structures that you can use to build a website. Then learn how to create a flowchart for the pages you want to include on your site.
Websites exist to inform, educate, persuade, or entertain. Take this opportunity to concentrate on site design themes that pay attention to information delivery. Learn how to organize elements in order to enable visitors to accomplish their own goals. Explore usability, content, and design.
Discover how you can use visual and graphic design, page layout, and grids to take your designs to the next level. At the same time, become familiar with design considerations like visual hierarchy, page dimensions, and white space.
Typography plays a dual role by providing both verbal and visual communication. Almost any type of font will do to transmit information to others. But to convey the right type of mood along with the information takes a special type and color of font. Learn all the secrets here!
Find out how you can use Cascading Style Sheets to modify fonts. Become familiar with inline, document-level, and external (linked) style sheets, and learn how to create an external CSS file to control the formatting of any or all pages on your site. You'll also take a look at some early font embedding techniques and explore two popular Flash-related options currently in use.
Before you write for the Web, you should take the time to understand how people read online. Become familiar with the use of titles, headlines, and subheads to assist readers in navigating your site. Discover the advantages of using a Web content management system. Learn how you can communicate more easily and informally with Web visitors by adding a blog to your site.
You can use images to add interest to your site and to help with navigation. Early designers were limited graphically by HTML attributes, and later designers discovered they could use tables to place images. Today's designers also have the option of using CSS to position images on the screen. But believe it or not, many people still use text-based browsers. So, you'll learn how to make the information you convey through your images accessible to those individuals as well.
The combination of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript allows you to create intensely interactive Web applications similar to any game or presentation built with traditional programming languages. This interaction of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript is known as Dynamic HTML or DHTML. Become familiar with the basics of DHTML, including code you can use to enhance your designs by adding layers to your pages.
Early websites were created by a few to be read by many. Over the years, developers added interactivity to websites through discussion forums, chat rooms, and shopping carts. These features are part of what might be called "Web 1.0". Today the focus has shifted from the sponsor of the site to the visitor, and sites like Flickr and YouTube are popular. They're examples of Web 2.0 sites. Examine several popular Web 2.0 sites, and take a look ahead to Web 3.0.
Richard Blum has been an IT industry professional for over 20 years, working mainly as a network and systems administrator. During this time, he has worked with Microsoft, Novell, Unix, and Linux servers, and has created Web sites using a variety of different programming languages. Blum is the author of several programming and systems administration books, including Professional Assembly Language, C# Network Programming, PostgreSQL 8 for Windows, Sendmail for Linux, Postfix, and Network Performance Open Source Toolkit.
Prerequisites:
Completion of Creating Web Pages (or equivalent HTML or Web authoring tool experience).
Requirements:
Hardware Requirements:
Software Requirements:
Other:
The instructional materials required for this course are included in enrollment and will be available online.
A new session of each course opens each month, allowing you to enroll whenever your busy schedule permits.
Once a course session starts, two lessons will be released each week for the six-week duration of your course. You will have access to all previously released lessons until the course ends.
The interactive discussion area for each lesson automatically closes two weeks after each lesson is released, so you’re encouraged to complete each lesson within two weeks of its release.
The final exam will be released on the same day as the last lesson. Once the final exam has been released, you will have two weeks plus 10 days (24 days total) to complete the final and finish any remaining lessons in your course. No further extensions can be provided beyond these 10 days.
Excellent course. I liked using a restaurant as a model and designing a web page - I learned a great deal about site design and am beginning the design of another site.
"Thank you so much for the great information and advice given in this class. It was very helpful and I'm sure it will help me start my own business in web design. It will take awhile to take in all that we have covered but I'm sure my new business will be underway soon.
"The course material was and will be very useful to me. It answered a lot of my questions, introduced me to new web page development methods, and provided good material for use as I work to improve the web site that I helped build and help maintain.
"This course was extremely helpful to my pursuit of web design knowledge, on many levels, especially organization and development, which I came to discover are just as important as technical issues!
"What a great learning experience! My instructor was great. I was able to complete the class without missing any important part of my life. I am convinced that online learning is the new classroom for busy individuals. I just wish I had took the advice of my daughter and started sooner. I do not have one complaint. It was a great learning experience for this 56 year old lady. Thanks for having this at my disposal.
"You have been extremely "hands on" with us, a wealth of info and very pleasant. You always answer promptly and personally. For the first time, I've felt like part of a class even though I'm alone here at my computer. You made me feel comfortable to ask anything and as often as I needed.
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