Wildlife Website Annotations (College Work)

This project which were given by a real client, I was very disappointed with. Not only I couldn't complete it but I believe I was not taught enough to complete the website all together.
I started off with a template I scribbled up onto Photoshop, as the Client explained they wanted certain things on the front page, and other pages. Although, I unfortunately had time to do just one of these, which was the Index Page.

This template was the one I adored the most, because I liked the simpleness of the layout and the way you were able to navigate. The layout consists of an Introduction, a title and subscriptions on one half of the layout and the other contains small little tidbits of information in which you can read. I wanted the important stuff to hover at the top, so people take more notice there.




I decided to start with the DIV tags in Dreamweaver, so that I can see the layout for my self, and develop it from there. Unfortunately, because I never completed the task, I did, however, put bits of information in to tag it and see what is what on the layout.
I had to change parts of the layout, though, such as the advertisement area, as the size of the adverts were much bigger then what I gave them. I believe I did well with the layout and would have looked like a good website if I had finished it.

Top Half

Bottom Half

Homely House Annotations (College Work)

This was the first website we made for the Website Design brief. We were told to do a website for a bed and breakfast company called Homely House, using their images and website to create it. So I wanted to keep the website simple and easy accessible whilst it looking clear and understandable.

I made sure to keep the colours, the text and the backgrounds the same sort of colour, as this will create a less vibrant but more officiant website. If it was inaccessible, there would be complaints and misunderstandings on the website, which would possibly put the website and maybe the business out of business.

This is the About Us page.

I found it quite hard to work with the materials given, although, I tried my best to get everything looking great and organised as best as I can to a slight high standard.

I managed to link each and every page properly, with no mistakes or errors, so that each page runs smoothly between each other. Also, I made sure each page was identical, but distinguishable to which page is which. Keeping a consistent style throughout the website.

Each page in slight detail.

Website Design Issues (College Work)

Every website has its own fault. Whether it's a coding error, or design error, policies are put in place to deal with these sorts of situations that unfold on the World Wide Web. As a website designer or creator, you have to know the rules in which the consumers or customers which come across your website need provided to them so that you aren't breaking the law.
One of the main problem these days is websites for people with disabilities, they are few and far between. For this fault, there was a law placed against this act to make to more fairer (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)). This is just one of the many rules or laws which website designers have to abide by.
So, let us look at some examples and understand the differences and qualities which these websites have;

Facebook
Facebook was created February 2005 by a guy named Mark Zuckerburg, privately owned and made for the soul purpose of contacting other students on the canvas of his university easily, it then exploded in 2009 and has been the most used social network since.
Facebook has quite a simple layout with a gorgeous colour scheme which keeps it attractive and not eye burning. Because Facebook is quite simple, it's a nice loading space, but there's some features such as HTML 5 which keeps status posts coming onto the home page for your own convenience and games for your personal pleasure. The navigation has become a bit more tricky for a first timer recently, as they keep updating how the page looks, but once you get used to it, you know what's what no matter how much they change it. Considering the updates keep coming, it's quite weird from a design view that they would have least put a feature in to change the appearance of the Facebook front page its self, for your own personal benefit. Also, Facebook's layout still looks like it's using tables to construct it's appearance.
As for Content is concerned, it's not made by the creator but by the people who use it and update their so called "Status". Games, how ever, which are hosted onto the Facebook site its self, has its own feeds and content which tells the user or reader whether they have gotten an achievement, received gold or credits, etc. Though, if the content was squashed in its browser window, it appears to stay fixed, which isn't good for computer monitors which are much smaller then the standard size of the website its self.

Yale University School of Art
Yale University School of Art is a unique website (It's a Wiki Page) which can be edited and changed by staff, students and people from outside of the school. Because of this, unfortunately the page doesn't look as professional as any student looking for a University would think.
The content of this website is quite appealing, and spelling is perfect left right and center. This makes it easier to establish what the website is trying to tell a viewer about their webpage and their University. Fonts used on the content are distinguishable and readable, no two fonts clash together.  However, despite the information available on the website, colour schemes and backgrounds which change each and every page is enough to put off even the most simple of users. Because of it's changing availability, it's quite simply this websites downfall. Another result of a badly made website is if there's not an update in information, which results back to content issues. Clearly there has been an update recently, during this year, but down the bottom of the websites page it states the last update was 2007.

Gaia Online
Gaia Online started as a Link List in early 2003, but was originally dubbed "Go Gaia". It is now one of the most known free Social Networking website and Forum based game on the internet, winning two awards between 2007 and 2010.
The layout of Gaia Online can vary, depending on what sort of size screen you have (adaptable) and it has a very vibrant colour scheme, but with a young adult tone, really setting their age group between 16 - 30 year olds. HTML 5 can be seen on the front page of Gaia Online, as their news/announcement posts are posted on a slide show with images illustrating what's new, but as for other things which happen around the website are stacked in slats of information in their own boxed tabs. Navigation is also based on tabs, as you hover over the links provided on the top bar, it is laid out perfectly, intentional for people who normally find it hard to find stuff in the first place, everything like your account details and things like that are stored in these tabs, making your website experience more pleasing. Font usage is matching which is always nice. Clashing text, clashing colours or even clashing images are never nice for the viewer to stumble upon. Unfortunately, Gaia Online do not abide by web standards which makes it quite unfair for people with disabilities to log on and search around on the website. This possibly makes their user count much more smaller then intended. Content can also be quite daunting, as there are many older users on the website its self, it can be offensive or rude, but the websites guidelines state that you must be 13 or over to view the site and use it. (PG 13)

Research on Website Design (College Work)

Web pages and Browsers all work differently. They either have a certain code which keeps them simple, or a code which makes them damn right complicated. This is what makes today's internet.
The information which goes into pages really counts, so it can compute into our browser and make sense to us, rather then bunches and bunches of text which means absolutely nothing. During the big internet boom in the 90's, all a web page was, was full of links (Hyperlinks) which guided you to certain folders or spots with information. Now, you can only see this if you would like to file share on a web page rather then sending the file, or use it for storing information as you create a website.

Codes and Languages which make up the Internet/Webpages

HTML
HTML, or Hypertext Markup Language is possibly the most common language used for web page make up, but also the basic building blocks which make up a normal web page. HTML is laid out in tabs or tags which hold information for a certain command (For example; To make text bold in the coding for a website you would have to use tag "<b>" write in your text and then close the tag with "</b>" when you have finished the line you want bold).  HTML is the code which makes web pages simple and understandable for viewers.


JavaScript
JavaScript is a proto-type based language which runs on first class settings and multiple languages, so it is a very loose and simple language to learn. JavaScript is mostly used to load up applications (which come from outside a web browser) inside a web browser window (Such as PDF files) but the language can often be used to load up Widgets for your desktop or make a Site-Specific browser load up onto any other browser.


PHP
Originally, PHP (Hypertext Processor) was just designed for web development purposes to produce sofisticated and dynamic web pages. Now, PHP is embedded into HTML to create what is known as a pure web page as it help sustain and make a web page look pretty. PHP can be deployed and used onto many web space servers and on almost every single operating system and platform without no money fee. This is because it is a free software which can be used in many places for your benefit if using to create a web page or website design.


XML
Quite like JavaScript, XML (Extensible Markup Language) where it encodes documents in a machine-readable form. Although, this isn't for Web Browsers, but for the computer its self. This means it keeps a user posted on something which is being updated countlessly on a daily/monthly or even yearly basis. An easy way to show an XML feed is RSS feeds which is something commonly used on the internet to update whether a new web comic has been released or that a new game has just hit the internet and there's loads of reviews about it. Other then that, items such as ATOM, SOAP, XHTML have XML embedded into it as well.


DOM
DOM (Document Object Model) is possibly one of the few oldest web languages and was the main key to the Browser Wars. A specific web browser is not acquired to use DOM, however, JavaScript is dependent on DOM to function and script a web page properly, sorting the HTML and Browser to render and work as one. (The unfortunate side is that different browsers use different HTML states, during the browser wars, which made the DOM useless in some areas.)


JAVA
The most popular language on the internet, to date, JAVA is used to power things like Flash files, Quick Time files, Chat Scripts etc. onto the website or web browser its self. Even thought the language its self is quite hard to manage and use, it's very good for staging and then running applications for some ones benefit. For example, free online drawing programs such as Oekaki's (Japanese/European drawing sites) and Paint Chats all run on JAVA powered engines, so it's a known thing to many artists.


CSS
Embedded and coded in between HTML brackets and codes, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is what makes your normal web page look pretty. The language its self controls the colours and the settings that HTML can't provide its self, as well as certain functions where it can code a webpage so that every webpage has the same formatting as the last, which makes it simpler for the designer to get pages done as fast as possible. It's basically a code which makes things which are much more harder to manage, much more easier and simplistic.


FLV
The abbreviated term for Flash Video, it's a file format which now uses Adobe Flash Player to play footage on the internet. It is viewable on most operating systems, accept for iPhones/iPods, which have a distinctive way of coding in its self, and much more complex then what FLV provides. FLV supports two different kinds of file share, in which both types of files are bitmaps but unfortunately colour is broken down to make the file run faster as well as being compressed.


SWF
SWF is a file format which is much more sophisticated then FLV files, and can contain much more bigger files with better quality. This means that it would be more efficient to have it on a website to make it more appealing. Unlike, FLV files, SWF's are out to impress, but uses the same software (Adobe Flash Player) to run the clip or file. Normally SWF is used for animations and vectored images.