Please leave me a comment with a link to your HTML web design page AS WELL AS your homework page showing me your completed CODE ACADEMY.

DUE DATE:

MONDAY, MAY 12TH – NO LATER THAN 1PM.

LATE SUBMISSIONS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED.

The following information encompasses your final project for the semester.

OVERALL

• Correct doctype
• Properly nested elements
• Clean code
• COMPLETED code academy lessons

PAGES

• Resume
• Artist Statement
• Contact
• Bio
• Homework
• Portfolio
• List
• Photo Page
• Table
• Thumbnail Gallery
• Webpage
• Index

LISTS

• Unordered list
• Ordered list
• Definition list
• List within a list

TABLE

1 table

LINKS

• Email
• A href
• Target = blank
• Portfolio page – thumbnail image clicks to larger image
• Bag to the top link
• Embed a video
• Embed a sound file

NAVIGATION

• Consistent navigation on all pages
• H1
• H2
• H3

CSS

• External CSS page
• At least one paragraph with a background color

WHAT IS CSS?

Introduction to CSS

• Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are a standard developed to allow designers control over presentational elements of a Web page and effectively separate content from presentation.
• A style is a group of attributes that are called by a single name.
• A style sheet is a group of styles.
• The cascade part of CSS means that more than one stylesheet can be attached to a document, and all of them can influence the presentation. It also means that different applications of CSS can be applied to a page in order of precedence: inline, embedded, external and default.

CODE ACADEMY LESSON IV

1. What’s CSS?  Lessons 1-6

The basics: what CSS is, how it works, and why we separate form from function.

CSS SYNTAX

The CSS syntax is a little different from the tag and attribute format of HTML. A CSS style is made up of a selector, which is the HTML element or class name you wish to define rules for, and a set of properties and values. A property and its value are separated by a colon (:). You can define multiple properties for a style, separating them with a semi-colon(;). Property/value sets are enclosed in brackets{}.

For example, if you wanted to redefine all HTML in your <p> tags to look like this, then your style would look like this:

p {
color: #00CC00;
font-size: 13px;
font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;
font-weight: bold; text-decoration:none;
}

The order of properties doesn’t matter, as long as you separate them with a semi-colon. Property values that have multiple words are surrounded by double quotes: “Courier New”.

You can apply the same style to multiple selectors by grouping them:

h1, h2, h3, h4 {

color: #00CC00
}

There is a full CSS reference and extensive code examples at:

W3 Schools CSS Tutorial

also at: http://www.barelyfitz.com/screencast/html-training/css/positioning/

CODE ACADEMY LESSON IV

2. CSS Syntax

Now that you know what CSS is, it’s time to learn how to use it.

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Sizing in CSS

There are a number of different measurement schemas within xHTML / CSS. Which one to use depends on context, and you can mix and match them.

• px – number of pixels, relative to the screen size. This is the most consistent across machines, browsers, monitors
• % – percentage of the total width or height
• em – size relative to the em size of the base font

We will go into when it is appropriate to use the various schemes in later weeks. For now, use the px units in your stylesheets.

---

CODE ACADEMY LESSON IV

3. Details, Details

You’ve got basic CSS under your belt—now we’ll cover some of the finer aspects.

---

 

The three types of HTML elements to apply styles to:

An important concept to understand is that there are basically three types of HTML tags: block-level elements, inline elements, and replaced tags.

1. Think of block-level elements as boxes that have a line break before and after. Block-level elements are the ones you will spend most of your time applying style rules to, or manipulating with scripting. They include h1-h6, p, div, ul, ol, blockquote.
2. Inline elements on the other hand, don’t have line breaks before and after. Inline elements are used in the middle of another element, and include a, b, strong, italic, em, span
3. The third kind of HTML tag is called a replaced tag. What it means is simply that these elements have a set width and height. The most-used replaced tag is the <img> tag, which you must specify a height and width for.

If an element is not explicitly defined, it is known as an anonymous element.You will not be able to style this element directly.

CLASSES AND IDS

Classes and Ids are a way to designate specific elements in your HTML. You can apply either a class or id or both to any element:

<div id="navigation">

<p>

There is one key difference between a classes and ids:

• IDs can only be applied to one element per page
• Classes can be applied to multiple elements per page

When naming classes and ids, it is good practice to name them logically and semantically. The names should not describe the physical attributes of the style you plan to apply to them, but the type of thing that they are in the structure of your page. For example, if you have a unordered list of links that will serve as your navigation, this:

<ul id = "navigation">

is better than this:

<ul id = "top">

The reason for this once again we want to separate the structure from the presentation. Naming your classes and ids logically means that if you radically change the color scheme or layout defined by your style sheet, the structure will still make sense.

3 WAYS TO USE STYLE SHEETS

There are three methods of accessing style sheets from your HTML:

1. Inline as part of an HTML tag.
2. Embedded in the <head> section of your page between <style></style> tags
3. In an external document that is linked to the page

Here is an example of a page that uses inline and embedded styles:

• Resume with Inline and Embedded Styles

We are going to focus primarily on using external style sheets. The are a couple of advantages to this. First, you can apply the same styles to some or all pages of your site. Second, you can make a change on the external style sheet and all the pages it is linked to will change. And last, with a simple change to your code, you can switch style sheets and completely alter the look of your page.

Style sheets work in 4.x or later browsers (but still not consistently) such as Navigator 4.5 or 6 and IE 4 or 5. Most earlier browsers ignore them.

A good place to see style sheets in action, and to really understand how powerful they are, is the CSS Zen Garden.

CREATING AND LINKING TO YOUR OWN EXTERNAL STYLE SHEET

An external style sheet is a plain text document containing all the style declarations you wish to apply to the linked pages. It does not have the structural tags (html, head, body) that your HTML documents have.
Once you have created your style sheet, you can associate it with your page using the link tag in your HTML, placed between the <head> tags:

<link href="styke.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>

Code Academy Review

MANIPULATING BASIC CSS PROPERTIES

• Text
  
• Font
• Border
• Margin
• Padding
• Background
• Lists

CSS Classes and IDs

WEB DEVELOPER ADD-ONS

There is an excellent suite of Firefox and Google Chrome add-ons that will help you in your site development. We’re going to install them now, and I highly recommend that you install them on your home machine:

• Web Developer Add-Ons

As the course goes on, we are going to learn to use the various tools included in the suite.

VALIDATING YOUR CODE

It is essential to make sure that you are writing valid xHTML code. Improperly formatted code can cause your pages to render in unpredictable ways or not at all in various browsers.

The W3C offers a free validator that you can run any html page through:

• W3C Markup Validator

You can also access the validator through the “Tools” menu in the Web developer toolbar.

HOMEWORK

CODE ACADEMY  | Introduction to CSS

No. 7 | CSS AN OVERVIEW
NO. 8 | DESIGN A BUTTON ON YOUR WEBSITE

CODE ACADEMY  | CSS Classes and IDs
NO. 9 | CSS SELECTORS
NO. 10 | SORTING YOUR FRIENDS

CSS
USING THE WHAT IS CSS? VIDEO WE WATCHED INN\ CLASS —

Go to one of the html pages you already created and add three div’s that corollate to three div styles in the style.css page you created.

1. Complete ALL the code academy tutorials finishing with Introduction to CSS No. 7 CSS: An Overview.
2. Using all the properties we have covered today, create a single, external stylesheet and apply it to both your bio and your resume pages.
3. Post the new work and link it to your homework page.
4. Go back into your index.html, artist.html, resume.html and contact.html pages and add div’s.
5. Create a style.css page in Text Wrangler and link it to your index.html, artist.html, resume.html and contact.html pages. Add the div names in your css page and STYLE them including font, color, size and any other attributes you want to use.
6. Take any 12 images. They can be photos, illustrations, your artwork, anything you have. If you do not have anything you can pull images from Google images or create different colored boxes and use those as images. Create two different sizes of these images, one thumbnail image and one full size image. The full size image should not exceed 800×600 pixels. Use the “Save for Web” process to optimize the images, saving them in the file format most appropriate for each image. Save these images to the “images” folder you created in week two.
7. Create HTML / CSS using the thumbnail size of the images that duplicates the functionality of the thumbnail gallery that we went over in class today. Take the thumbnail gallery one step further – link each thumbnail to its full sized image. Post the files and images to your server and put the link to the gallery on your blog.

1. Add a background image.
2. Make one of your images link to another website.
3. Add ALT, HEIGHT & WIDTH properties to all  your images.
4. Add a border to one of your pages. 

Lists Within Lists

• OPEN and Unordered List
• CREATE a line in the list BUT do not close the li
• OPEN the Ordered List
• CREATE several lines in the list
• CLOSE the Ordered List
• CLOSE the line and keep going

SEE THE CODE BELOW

<ul>

<li>Interests
<ol>
<li>Golf</li>
<li>Sleep</li>
<li>Lasers</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>Favorite Teams</li>
</ul>

<ul>
<li>Interests
<ul>
<li>Golf</li>
<li>Sleep</li>
<li>Lasers</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Favor

DO NOW | CODE ACADEMY

HTML Structure: Using Lists
Social Networking Profile – Exercises 1-7

TABLES

• Tables are  a way to store tabular data so it is easy to read.
• It’s a way to present information neatly in a table with rows and columns.

• To create a table, you have to start with the tag below:

<table>

• To add rows of information, use the tag below.

<tr>  This tag tells each row how many cells to have. 

Add a single <td>(“table data”) cell to the first row, which creates a single column. See below:

<table >
<tr>
<td>One</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>One</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>One</td>
</tr>

TO ADD TWO COLUMNS TO A TABLE SEE THE CODE BELOW:

<table>

<tr>
<td>King Kong</td>
<td>1897</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>Dracula</td>
<td>1897</td>

</tr>

<tr>
<td>Bride of Frankenstein</td>
<td>1935</td>

</tr>

</table>

DO NOW | CODE ACADEMY

HTML Basics III
Tables
Lessons 6-10

DIV AND SPAN TAGS

DIV and SPAN tags are “structure tags”.

<div></div>

Short for “division,” <div> the div tag allows you to divide your page into containers (that is, different pieces).

<span> </span>

The span tag lets you to control styling for smaller parts of your page, such as text. If for instance you always want the first word of your paragraphs to be red, you can wrap each first word in<span></span> tags and make them any color you want.

DO NOW | CODE ACADEMY

HTML Basics III
Lessons 11-15

HTML: INSERTING IMAGES
IMAGE FILE FORMATS: Review

There are three primary image file formats used for graphics viewed on the web. Each of these file types were designed for the purpose of compressing memory usage. Each file type does this a different way. NOTE: .PSD, .AI and .INDD files will NOT show up on your website.

REVIEW FROM PHOTOSHOP
Jpeg 

Jpegs work well on photographs, naturalistic artwork, and similar material; not so well on lettering, simple cartoons, or line drawings. JPEG is “lossy,” meaning that the decompressed image isn’t quite the same as the one you started with. (There are lossless image compression algorithms, but JPEG achieves much greater compression than is possible with lossless methods.) JPEG is designed to exploit known limitations of the human eye, notably the fact that small color changes are perceived less accurately than small changes in brightness.

Gif
Graphics Interchange Format. A format used for displaying bitmap images on World Wide Web pages, usually called a “gif” because .gif is the filename extension. These files use “lossless” compression and can have up to 256 colors.

Png-8 and Png-24
PNG is a compression scheme that has two main benefits: it is a lossless compression image format and it holds alpha channel information. Originally, the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) format was designed as a royalty-free format, which would replace GIF and JPEG. Png-24 allows for smooth blending between alpha and opaque.

Image Size
When speaking about image size on the web, there are three possible interpretations of this that you must take into account.

File Size refers to the amount of disk space an image occupies (in KB or MB)
Image Dimensions refers to the physical size of the image, expressed in height and width.

Resolution refers the pixel density of an image. This is expressed in pixels per inch (ppi). Images are displayed on the web at 72 dpi. Printed images are generally of higher resolution.

Resize your images in Photoshop PRIOR to uploading them on the web.

Compression

Compression shrinks down the file size of the photo so that it loads on the user’s computer quickly, but maintains a certain level of quality.

SAVING IMAGES

Saving Images Out of Photoshop or Illustrator  

Both Photoshop and Illustrator have excellent options for optimizing images for the Web, via the “Save for Web” menu. It is better to use this option rather than “Save As” or “Export” options, as you will have more control over the output settings and the final file size will be smaller because no preview image is saved with the file.

Save and Export

There are two ways of saving a photo in Photoshop. The first is to use the Save As… dialogue, the other is called Save for Web & Devices… which is used to save your photos in preparation for publication to the Web.

1) Save as: FIRST, save the file type as a Photoshop or .PSD file. This will save extra Photoshop-specific information about your photo and allows you to go back to the file at a later date and manipulate all layers. You will not lose any quality when you re-save it multiple times. THEN, save as a .jpg, .png or .gif which compresses the photo allowing you to use it on the web.

2) Save for Web: Use this when you are ready to export your photo for publication to the Web.  The Save for Web allows you to see how your photo will appear once it’s published to a Web site. Optimized will show you how your photo will appear once it’s published on a Web site, and 2-up/4-up will show you comparisons so you can see how the different levels of compression will affect your photo when saving. These are automated ways to save your image for the Web.

***Here’s a great reference for “save for web”.

3 Ways you can Retrieve Images to Place onto your Website

Use a third party image hosting site like Flickr.

Flickr:

Upload your image to your Flickr account and copy the image URL. To get the direct URL of an image on Flickr do the following:

Upload your own image or search and find an image already on Flickr. One you’ve got the image you want to use, right click on the image and then click on “view all sizes”. Choose your size and click on it. You’ll see the image with various image sizes listed above it. Choose your size and click on it. Right click on the image and choose “copy image URL”. NOTE: you need the direct url to image with a files extension of .jpg, .gif or .png.

 <img src=”http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4081/4883281674_8428f07e53_z.jpg”>

Use a direct URL to a website.

Find your image anywhere on the web. Click on the image and then click on “full-size image”. Copy the URL and place the full URL into your HTML file.

 <img src=”http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jul-aug/06-what-is-your-dog-thinking/dog1.jpg”>

Upload your own image via FTP to your own web hosting space.

Log into your web hosting space via FTP and upload your images. It’s good practice to place them inside a folder called: images.

 <img src=”images/dog.jpg”>

Here’s a great resource for finding images released under Creative Commons.

ADDING IMAGES TO YOUR PAGES

Images are displayed on the web using the image tag:

<img>

This is the basic syntax for using the image tag:

<img src=”images/dog.jpg”>

<img src=”images/dog.jpg” alt=”Spot the Beagle” />

The image tag also allows you to input a numeric value for the height and width of an image. It is a good idea to specify the height and width, as this allows the browser to render the page faster.

<img src=”images/dog.jpg” alt=”Spot the Beagle” height=”400px” width=”200px”>

You can try it out on W3Schools.

Pulling an Image from the Web

If you’re pulling in an image from the web, view its properties to grab the absolute URL. If you are pulling in an image from a folder on your a server, call to it correctly:

Examples:

• <img src="http://www.url.com/nameofimage.jpg" alt="Name of Image">This image is located somewhere else on the web.
• <img src="images/dog.jpg" alt="Spot the Beagle">This image is located within a folder called images on my server.

Background Images

You can set an image as a background in any page element. The properties of background images are detailed here:

• Background Image Properties 

Putting it All Together: Images and CSS

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>HTML Images Tutorial</title>
<link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” href=”style.css”>
</head>
<body>

<h1>
HTML Images Tutorial
</h1>

<h3>
There are three way to place <i>images</i> onto your HTML page.
</h3>

<ol>
<li>Use a third party web hosting space.</li>
<li>Link to an image already on the web.</li>
<li>Upload an image to your web hosting space using FTP.</li>
</ol>

<p>
Use a direct link to pull this image from <b>Flickr</b>or another image hosting site.
</p>

<div align=”left”>
<img src=”http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4081/4883281674_8428f07e53_z.jpg”>
</div>

<p>
Upload an image to your site by <b>linking</b> to an image anywhere on the web.
</p>

<div align=”left”><img src=”http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jul-aug/06-what-is-your-dog-thinking/dog1.jpg”>
</div>

<p>Or, you can <b>upload</b> an image to your web hosting space using<strong>FTP.</strong>
<div align=”left”>
<img src=”images/dog.jpeg”>
</div>
</p>

<p>
You can even use an image as a link to a <b>URL</b> anywhere on the web.
</p>

<p>Create a link of an image:
<a href=”http://www.blogcdn.com/www.urlesque.com/media/2008/11/23-pooch11.jpg”>
<img src=”images/Blinky_Dog.gif” alt=”dog gif”></a>
</p>

</body>
</html>
If you use the HTML above, you can see what the site looks like in the screenshot below.

You can see the FULL HTML page here. The HTML was upload to web space using FTP.

Image Spacing and Alignment

Let’s see how it looks when you add text. Type in “This is one crazy dog!” directly after the close of the img tag. The text will bump up against the edge of the image and wraps around the bottom of the image (depending on how much text you’ve written). To make the text wrap correctly, add an “align” attribute to the image. It’s your choice whether you want to align it to the right or left by using align=”left/right”.

In the image below I’ve added the attribute align=”left” – see the full code here: <img src=”images/dog.jpeg” align=”left” />

A Simple Thumbnail Gallery

This method creates a flexible grid of thumbnail images and captions that dynamically fills rows based on the browser width. This is what it looks like in action:

• Thumbnail Gallery html

Each thumbnail and caption is part of an unordered list (ul) with the id “thumbnails”. The list items (li) are set to display:inline and float:left and have background, margin and padding set to create the white boxes around them.

• Thumbnail Gallery css

Rounded Corners

It seems like the trend nowadays are images that have rounded corners. If you don’t want to manually do it in photoshop or illustrator, use this online service called RoundPic.

View the links below to learn more about rounded corners and background images.

• Round Pic
• Rounded corners generator
• Background repeat
• Background images html

Embedding Multimedia

Playing Quicktime and Flash Movies
The QuickTime format is developed by Apple. Videos stored in the QuickTime format have the extension .mov.

QuickTime is a common format on the Internet, but QuickTime movies cannot be played on a Windows computer without an extra (free) component installed.

With the object element, code that will play a QuickTime movie can easily be added to a web page. The object can be set to automatically install a QuickTime player if it is not already installed on the users computer.

If you use a third-party service like Youtube, Vimeo, Google, or blip.tv, you can just copy their embed code and paste it into your .html file.

• Choose video
• Choose share
• Choose embed
• Copy code

<iframe width=”640″ height=”360″ src=”//www.youtube.com/embed/rmTg-qHcGs4″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>

EMBEDDING AUDIO

There are several different types of music formats that are used…so which one do we use for the web?

The WAVE format is one of the most popular sound format on the Internet, and it is supported by all popular browsers. If you want recorded sound (music or speech) to be available to all your visitors, you should use the WAVE format.

The MP3 format is the new and upcoming format for recorded music. If your website is about recorded music, the MP3 format is the choice of the future.

ADDING INLINE SOUND
When sound is included in a web page, or as part of a web page, it is called inline sound.

If you plan to use inline sounds in your web applications, be aware that many people find inline sound annoying. Also note that some users might have turned off the inline sound option in their browser.

My best advice is to include inline sound only in web pages where the user expects to hear the sound. An example of this is a page which opens after the user has clicked on a link to hear a recording.

So if you insist… you just need to use the tag.

<embed src="beatles.mid" />

HYPERLINKING SOUND
If a web page includes a hyperlink to a media file, most browsers will use a “helper application” to play the file.

The following code fragment displays a link to a music file. If a user clicks on the link, the browser will launch a helper application and play the music file.

<a href="nameofyoursong.wav">Play this tune</a>

Play this tune

HOMEWORK | WEEK 13

CODE ACADEMY  |  SOCIAL MEDIA NETWORKING
If you haven’t already done so, complete the social media networking section under the course.
HTML Structure: Using Lists. It’s listed as number 4.

CODE ACADEMY  |  LIST WITHIN LIST
On one of your pages create a list within a list using ordered and ordered list.

CODE ACADEMY  | TABLES
On one of your pages create three tables.

• One table with one column and three items.
• One table with two columns and three items.
• One table with three columns and three items.

CODE ACADEMY  | Clickable Photo Page
HTML Structure: Tables, Divs, and Spans
No. 6 | Clickable Photo Page

Create a NEW html page called portfolio.html and create a clickable photo pages using images you created from the Photoshop and/or Illustrator section of the class. Upload it to you site.

Rounded Pictures 

Add at least three rounded photos on your portfolio page.

EMBED VIDEO

Add a video to any page on your website.

EMBED AUDIO
Go to Sound Cloud and find any sound, copy the source code and embed it on any page.

W3 SCHOOLS

This is a great resource site, I’m going to be referring to it a lot this class and in the future. If you are ever stuck for how to do something, start here:
http://w3schools.com

MANAGE YOUR SITE: REMOTE VS. LOCAL FILE SYSTEMS

When we build a Web site, we develop them on our local (or “desktop”) machine, and publish them to a remote “Web server”. A Web server is a computer that is essentially the same as your desktop machine, but has server software installed that allows it to take http requests from an internet user’s computer (or “client”), and deliver the requested html document to the user’s browser. This client / server relationship is the basis of all Web activity.

What we call a “site” is really just a collection of html documents that we associate via internal references (links) between them. In order to keep your site organized, and to ensure that it functions exactly the same online as on your desktop, you must keep the file and directory structure exactly the same on the local and remote machines.

The first step in doing this is to organize your local file structure. First, create a “root” folder on your local machine or flash drive from which you are going to work. This folder could be named for the course (interactivemedia) or your username (najlahhicks). It doesn’t matter what the name is at the top level.

For the beginning of this class, I’m going to dictate a file structure that I want you all to use.

Within your root directory, create two directories:

working_files
public_html

From now on, the “working_files” directory will hold documents and images that you use as resource files for building your site, but not any files that will uploaded to the site itself. Put the resume text file that you brought today into this directory.

The public_html directory will contain all files that will actually become part of your site. Put the bio html file that you created as homework in that directory now.

Within the html directory, also create a subdirectory called:
images

We will use this directory later in the course to store any images that will appear in your web site.

UPLOADING YOUR FILES USING FTP/SFTP

Your html files are uploaded to the Web server using FTP, or File Transfer Protocol. You will need an FTP client to do this. If you are using the A server, you will need a program that supports SFTP, or Secure File Transfer Protocol. Here are likes to some popular programs:

Fugu (MAC) – This program is free.
Fetch (MAC)
CyberDuck (MAC) – This program is free.
FileZilla (PC) – This program is free.

All these programs function essentially the same. To connect to your remote server, you enter the address of the FTP server, your username and password.

***NOTE: You can upload files through the Bluehost file manager.

Intro to HTML

HTML is the language of Web browsers. HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language. HTML is a simple scripting language originally designed to allow nonlinear navigation of large text documents. It is constantly undergoing revision and evolution to meet the demands and requirements of the growing Internet audience under the direction of the W3Schools, the organization charged with designing and maintaining the language.

HyperText is the method by which you move around on the web. Clicking on specially coded text called hyperlinks navigates you to other pages. The term hyper indicates that the hierarchy of the pages is not linear — i.e. you can go to any place on the Internet whenever you want by clicking on links — there is no set order to do things in. Markup refers to HTML “does”.

HTML Syntax

All HTML syntax is composed of discreet pieces of code called elements. Elements are made up of paired opening and closing tags.

 FILE NAMING CONVENTIONS AND INDEX.HTML

There are a few rules that govern the naming of web files and directories:

All Web page files must end with .html or .htm. These extensions are interchangeable, but generally we use .html

Names are case sensitive. This means that Bio.html and bio.html will be considered by the server as two different files.

Spaces and non-alphanumeric characters are not allowed, with the exception of underscore (_) and hyphen (-)

The “home” page of a Web site is always called index.html or index.htm. If this file does not exist, you will either get an error or see a directory listing of the root directory, depending on how the Web server is configured.

My suggestion to all of you is that you come up with a naming convention for yourself now, and stick to it. This will avoid a lot of problems later on! For example, my naming convention is to use all lowercase letters, and to use underscores instead of spaces:

my_name.html

HTML Syntax

All HTML syntax is composed of discreet pieces of code called elements. Elements are made up of paired opening and closing tags.

Tags

Each tag has a specific meaning that communicates to the browse what it should do with the content between the opening and closing tag. For example, the <b></b> tag tells the browser to make bold all text contained between its opening and closing tags.

Tags are the cornerstone of HTML. Tags are instructions to the Web browser that dictate the display of text, images and other elements on the page and are not visible when the page is displayed to the user. You can recognize an HTML tag because it appears in between greater than and less than signs:
<tagname>

There is a large set of pre-designated tags within HTML. Today we are going to cover the basic tags needed for building a basic HTML page and formatting text.

There are two types of tags, container tags and non-container tags.

Container tags appear in pairs, as an opening tag and as a closing tag, like so:
<tagname> </tagname>

Everything contained between the opening <> and closing </> tags is subject to the tag properties.

Non-container tags appear singly, and are what is called “self-closing.” This means that they do not appear in sets, but only as a single tag. In this case, the page content affect by the tag is all contained within the single tag, like so:
<tagname tagcontent />

Note: Previous versions of HTML did not require the closing “/” character at the end of the non-container tag, and it will generally function correctly in most browsers without it, but for the specification we will be using as the standard for this class, you will need to include this.

Attributes

In the language of HTML, attributes serve to modify tags, much like an adjective modifies a noun. As the name implies, attributes are properties of the tag. Each tag has properties that can be changed via the use of the attributes that are associated with it. Attributes follow the tag name within a tags opening component, in between the greater than and less than signs, like so:
<tagname attributename=”value”>

The order of attributes is not important. You can place as many attributes inside a tag as is needed:
<tag attribute1=”value1″ attribute2=”value2″ attribute=”value3″>

Page Structure

In order for a Web browser to recognize a file as an HTML document, it must contain the proper structure. At the minimum, it must contain five basic tags. These tags must appear in the correct order. The page structure tags are as follows:

DOCTYPE tells the Web browser which HTML or XHTML standard your document is written to. For this class, you should use XHTML5 transitional. This is the first thing that should appear in any HTML document that you write.

<!DOCTYPE html>

Always use the code exactly as it appears above.

The <html> tag comes next. It encloses all other tags and content on the page, and further serves to instruct the browser that what is being rendered on the rest of the page. You should use this format for the html tag:

Third is the <head> tag which contains information that is not displayed in the browser window. For instance, a head tag may include information that search engines may use to find the page.

The <title> tag contains the text that appears in the title bar of the browser window. It is nested within the head tag.

The <body> tag contains all of the information to be displayed by the browser.

Using these tags, you can build a basic page structure:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>My First HTML Page</title>
</head>
<body>

Anything inside the body tags will appear on your Web page.

</body>

</html>

Use this template as the basis for all of your HTML pages!

CODE ACADEMY LESSON I

INTRODUCTION TO HTML

HTML Basics | Fundamentals of HTML

DOCUMENTS MUST HAVE LOGICAL STRUCTURE

All XHTML elements must be nested within the <html> root element. It is the element from which grows the document tree. All other elements can have sub (children) elements. Sub elements must be in pairs and correctly nested within their parent element. Within the html element there are two necessary “child” elements: the head element and the body element.

Logical Markup Example (Using semantic markup to describe content.)

<!DOCTYPE>
<html>
<head>


<title>Working with Structure</title>

</head>

<body>

<h1>Welcome</h1>

<p>Welcome to the site where structure matters!</p>

<h2>Getting Into Structure</h2>

<p>In order to begin working with structure, you need to be aware

of:</p>


<ul>

<li>DOCTYPE declarations</li>

<li>Properly structured head and body components</li>
<li>Logical structures for content markup</li>

</ul>

</body>
</html>

VIEWING THE DOCUMENT TREE

When you have a more semantic document, you can easily visualize it via the document tree, which is a map that reflects where elements go within the structural hierarchy of the document. This tree becomes critically important when using CSS because of the concept of inheritance.

Document root: html

• head & body are children to the root
• title is child to the parent head
• h1 , h2, p, ul all children of body
• Each li is a child to ul

 ELEMENTS MUST BE PROPERLY NESTED

In HTML some elements can be improperly nested within each other like this:

<strong><em>This text is bold and italic</strong></em>

In XHTML all elements must be properly nested within each other like this:

<strong><em>This text is bold and italic</em></strong>

TAG NAMES MUST BE IN LOWER CASE

This is because XHTML documents are XML applications. XML is case-sensitive. Tags like <p> and <P> are interpreted as different tags.

This is wrong:

<BODY>
<P>This is a paragraph</P>

</BODY>

This is correct:

<body>
<p>This is a paragraph</p>
</body>


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ALL XHTML ELEMENTS MUST BE CLOSED
Non-empty elements must have an end tag.

This is wrong:

<p>This is a paragraph

This is correct:

<p>This is a paragraph</p>

Empty Elements Must Also Be Closed

Empty elements must either have an end tag or the start tag must end with />.

This is wrong:

This is a break<br>

This is correct:
This is a break<br />

IMPORTANT Compatibility Note:

To make your XHTML compatible with today’s browsers, you should add an extra
space before the “/” symbol like this: <br />.

---

THE <!DOCTYPE> IS MANDATORY
An XHTML document consists of three main parts:

• the DOCTYPE
• the Head
• the Body

---

BASIC TAGS CONTINUED

Last week we introduced the basic page tags and the <p> tags. Today we are going to learn the rest of the most commonly used tags.

There are two types of HTML formatting tags: inline and block level tags. These two types have slightly different behaviors.

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Inline tags

These tags are designed to enclose content that is part of another element. Generally they are used when you want to affect just part of the text in a paragraph. There are just two inline tags we are going to talk about today.

Bold text:

<strong></strong> or <b></b>

Italic text:

<em></em> or <i></i>

Line breaks:

This is a self-closing (non-container) tag. This will create a single line break wherever it is placed in the code:

<br />

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Block level tags

These tags are used to control blocks of content. The main characteristic that differentiates block from inline is that block level elements appear by default with a line break before and after them. Here are the most common block level tags you will work with:

The six heading levels:

<h1>Heading 1</h1>

<h2>Heading 2</h2>

<Hh3>HEADING 3</h3>

<h4>Heading 4</h4>

<h5>Heading 5</h5>

<h6>Heading 6</h6>

Again, the paragraph tag:

<p></p>

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LISTS

There are several tags that you can use to create a “list” of items which is a very important way of organizing content. When used in combination with CSS,  lists are a great way to create navigation menus. The tags below are a little different than the tags above in that you must use two distinct tags to create the list, one that contains the entire list, and one that contains each item in the list. Let’s look at

There are three types of lists: unordered, ordered, and definition.

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Unordered List

This tag, enclosing all list content, creates a bulleted list.

The code:

<ul>

<li>apples</li>

<li> oranges</li>

<li>pears</li>

</ul>

This is how the list would look:

This is a LIST with an a href which makes your list a LINK.

List Item

NOTE: Inside the <ul> or <ol> tages, you use a set of tags, enclosing each line, or “list item” item:

<li></li>

---

Unordered List

This is how it would look on the web.

This is how it would look written in Text Wrangler.

This is the code you would use:

<p>This is an example of an unordered list.</p>

<ul>
<li>Unordered information</li>
<li>Ordered information</li>
<li>Definition lists</li>
</ul>

---

Ordered List

This tag, enclosing all list content, creates a numbered list:

<ol></ol>

To make an ordered list, like this:

1. Monday
2. Tuesday
3. Wednesday
4. Thursday
5. Friday

Use this code:

<ol>
 <li>Monday</li>
 <li>Tuesday</li>
 <li>Wednesday</li>

 <li>Thursday</li>
 <li>Friday</li>
</ol>

---

Definition List

This tag involves a main phrase, and then a definition for that phrase that appears indented and appearing on a separate line.

The

<dl></<dl>

tag defines the definition list.

The

<dt></dt>

tag is used for the main phrase in the list.

The

<dd></dd>

tag is for the definition itself.

This is how it would show up on the web.

This is how it would look written in Text Wrangler.

Use this code:

<dl>
<dt>This names an item</dt>
<dd>This defines the item names</dd>

<dt>This names another item</dt>
<dd>This defines the other item named</dd>
</dl>

To create an unordered list, like this:Use this code:

<ul>

<li>Unordered information</li>
<li>Ordered information</li>
<li>Definition lists</li>
</ul>

Common Link Types

Link to launch a new window <a href=”newpage.html” target=”_blank”> Link to launch email application<a href=”mailto:myname@email.com”>

<a href=”mailto:myname@email.com”>email me now</a>

OR

<a href="mailto:someone@example.com?Subject=Hello%20again">
Send Mail</a>

When someone clicks on the the “Send Mail”, the email field will pop up.

Anchor Links to a specific place on the same page

<a name=”top”></a>

= an anchor must be indicated in a single, specific spot on the page
<a href=”#top “>Return to Top</a> = a link with “#” before the name that was applied to the anchor link specified in another part of the page.

All the basic tags in one document

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NESTED ELEMENTS RULES

Important Note! With the exception of div, you cannot nest one block-level element inside of another. For example, this is wrong:

<p><h1>You can't put a heading inside a paragraph!</p>

But this is ok:

<div><p>You CAN put a paragraph inside a div!</p>

You can nest inline elements inside each other:

<strong><em>I can make this text bold and italic!</em></strong>

And you can nest inline elements inside block-level elements:

<p><em>I can make this paragraph italic!</em></p>

But you can never nest a block-level element inside an inline element:

<em><p>This is wrong!</p></em>

AND you can never nest a block-level element inside a list element:

<li><p>This is wrong!</p></li>

---

SPECIAL CHARACTERS AND NON-BREAKING SPACES

Text characters that are outside the normal ASCII character set must be represented in html via special character codes. This includes things like em dashes, curly quotes, ampersands, etc. These special character codes always begin with an ampersand (&) and end with a semi-colon(;). For example, an em dash (—), would be represented in your code like this:

—

or

—

One especially useful special character is the non-breaking space:

  

Put this character in your code when you want to have more than one white space in a row. However, do not use it to create indented or tabbed formatting, we’ll learn how to do that later!

For a full list of character codes, visit W3School’s Special Characters Reference.

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LINKING FILES

File linking is done through the use of the <a> or anchor tag.

Use the following syntax for linking to another document:

<a href="URL_of_target_document">link_text</a>

For example, if you were to link to Google, you would use the following code:

<a href="http://www.google.com/">Google</a>

To link to an email address, which will spawn the user’s designated email client, you simply need to add the “mailto” parameter:

<a href="mailto:emailaddress@server.com">email_text</a>

You may also link to “anchors” in the same file.

To do this, you must create both the link:

<a href="filename.html#anchor_name">anchor_text</a>

and the anchor to link to:

<a name="anchor_name">anchor_text</a>

Absolute vs. relative linksWhen citing the URL of the target document, you may use an “absolute” or “relative” path.

An “absolute” path is the full web address of the document, with protocol. This path will not change depending on the document that is linking to it. This type of link is primarily used when you are linking to an address that is external to the site you are linking from.

For example, the absolute path of this site is:

http://www.do1thing.org

A “relative” path is one where the information is given relative to the document on which the link appears. This type of linking will only work within a given site directory, it can not be used for external URLs.

With relative links, you must be aware of where the document is located in the file directory in relation to the file being linked to.

In the same directory:

filename.html

In a lower (sub) directory:

subdir_name/filename.html

In a higher (parent) directory:

../filename.html

Relative to the site root:

/filename.html

(note: it is unusual to use paths relative to the site root)

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LINK TARGETS

Unless instructed otherwise, a Web browser will open a target document in the same window as the linking document. The user of the “target” attribute allows you to direct the target document to an alternate window. Some of the attributes below only apply to framesets, which we will cover briefly later in the course.

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TARGET ATTRIBUTE VALUES

_blank Opens the linked document in a new window
_self Opens the linked document in the same frame as the link
_parent Opens the linked document in the parent frameset
_top Opens the linked document in the main browser window, replacing all frames

name Opens the linked document in the window with the specified name

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 Common Link Types

Link to launch a New Window
<a href=”newpage.html” target=”_blank”>
Link to launch email application
<a href=”mailto:myname@email.com”>
Anchor Links to a specific place on the same page
<a name=”top”></a>= an anchor must be indicated in a single, specific spot on the page
<a href=”#top “>Return to Top</a> = a link with “#” before the name that was applied to theanchor link specified in another part of the page

---

CODE ACADEMY LESSON II

Complete HTML Structure: Using Lists in Code Academy
This unit covers more advanced HTML structure and teaches you how to customize your pages.
HTML Basics II: 16 exercises

---

COMMENTING YOUR CODE

You can place a comment tag in your HTML to put a note into the code that will not be rendered by the browser. This is especially handy in a long and complex page. A comment is formatted as follows:

<!-- This is a comment -->

Everything between the <!– and –> tags will be hidden from the browser, but visible when you view the source.

---

COLOR

All color in Web pages, whether it is in text, background color, or other interface elements, is expressed in the HTML via hexidecimal codes. These codes consist of a # followed by 6 letters and numbers. For example, the code for white is #FFFFFF.

Below are two excellent references for the hex codes for the Web-safe palette.The Web-safe palette is a collection of colors that have been determined to be consistently rendered across boundaries.

Webmonkey Color Code Chart
Visibone Webmaster’s Palette

---

FONTS

Because a Web browser can only utilize those fonts installed on the end-user’s machine, there are a limited number of fonts reliably available across platforms. Here’s an up-to-date list of them:

Web Safe Fonts for Mac & PC

You should only use these fonts, or generic font designations, in your style sheets.

Here is a great resource for viewing how Web fonts will look in a browswer:

Typetester

---

META DATA

Meta data is located within the <head> of a web page. Your meta data is basically information that you insert that explains what this page/site is all about. Copy and past the code text below into your head:

1. Keywords:
   Information inside a meta element describes the document’s keywords.
   The Code Looks Like this:
   <meta name="keywords" content="HTML, DHTML, CSS, XML, XHTML, JavaScript, VBScript">
2. Description:
   Information inside a meta element describes the document.
   The Code Looks Like this:
   <meta name="description" content="Free Web tutorials on HTML, CSS, XML, and XHTML"/>

---

Creating your own HTML pages with Text Editors

To make your own Web pages, start with the code above. HTML pages can be created in any Plain Text Editing application. DO NOT use Microsoft Word, as it will add extra formatting that will break your code. Here are links to several text editors that you can download and use to create your pages:

• Text Wranger 2 – free (Mac)
• BBedit – educational discount (Mac)
• TextPad – free to try (PC)

Homework | Week 12

CODE ACADEMY

To review what we learned, go to Code Academy and create an account. Complete the following exercises:

Introduction to HTML
This unit will introduce you to the basics of HTML, the language used to create websites.
HTML Basics: 13 exercises

HTML Structure: Using Lists
This unit covers more advanced HTML structure and teaches you how to customize your pages.
HTML Basics II – 16 exercises

BE SURE to take a screen shot of each tag at the end of the lesson and add that to your homework page. 

Create a NEW folder on your desktop called:   webdesign

inside that folder use Text Wrangler to create a page and save it as index.html Upload that folder to the public_html folder on your website. Create a list and add an A HREF link to three more pages, artist.html, bio, html and resume.html.  Create hyperlinks to your artist, bio, resume pages on this page.

BIO.HTML (ALL IN LOWER CASE)
Using the basic page template that you saved in class today, create an HTML page that contains a short bio of yourself. Save the file with the following name: bio.html – Use all of the new tags we learned today to format your resume.

RESUME.HTML (ALL IN LOWER CASE)
Using the basic page template that you saved in class today, create an HTML page that contains a resume of yourself.

Save the file with the following name: resume.html –  Use all of the new tags we learned today to format your resume.

ADD

• Page anchor links within the longest page to take the user back up to the top of the page
• External links to at least two (2) web pages that you will use as online reference related to the topics you wrote about on your pages
• An email link to your contact email address
• Add at least two LISTS to your resume.

(WE WILL UPLOAD IT TO YOU WEBSITE DURING NEXT WEEK’S CLASS) it on YOUR site. Here is an example of a resume.

ARTIST.HTML (ALL IN LOWER CASE)

1. Create an artist statement and resume for yourself as a HTML – save the file as  artist.html.

• Add at least five tags to that page
• (WE WILL UPLOAD IT TO YOU WEBSITE DURING NEXT WEEK’S CLASS) it on YOUR site. Here is an example of an artist statement.

HOMEWORK.HTML

1. Create a page – save the file as  homework.html –(WE WILL UPLOAD IT TO YOU WEBSITE DURING NEXT WEEK’S CLASS) .

LIST

Create a LIST at the top of each page (just inside the body tag) with the names:

index.html
resume.html
artist.html

• Add an a href link to your resume.html page creating a link to an external website. Add the code for target = blank.
• Add the code for the email link to your resume.html page.
• Add the space character to anywhere on your resume.html page.
• Add the comment code: <!– This is a comment –> somewhere on your page and make a comment.
• Add both lines  of METADATA code into your head.
• Create a new page called: homework.html and upload it to your server. Add hyperlinks on that page that will take me to your index.html, artist.html, homework.html and contact.html pages.
• Create a new html page called “contact.html”. Create hyperlinks to your homework, resume and artist pages on this page.
• Add links between each of the pages.
• You can do this by create a LIST and adding that list to each of your pages. Below is an example:
• <ul>    <li><a href=”http://www.katmakes.com”>Home</a></li>    <li><a href=”http://www.katmakes.com/resume.html”>Resume</a></li>    <li><a href=”http://www.katmakes.com/artist.html”>Artist</a></li>    <li><a href=”http://www.katmakes.com/contact.html”>Contact</a></li>    <li><a href=”http://www.katmakes.com/hw.html”>Homework</a></li>     </ul>

1. DELICIOUS

Tag THREE websites on del.icio.us that are relevant to web design and specifically to what you learned in class today. It can be a tutorial, an article, a design blog or anything else that you think would be useful as a reference. Write a note in the comment section about why you think each one is a useful resource.

REFERENCE: The following three (3) reference articles are great resources…

Webmonkey – HTML Cheatsheet http://www.webmonkey.com/webmonkey/reference/html_cheatsheet/

Webmonkey – Stylesheets Guide http://www.webmonkey.com/webmonkey/reference/stylesheet_guide/

******NOTE: ALWAYS BRING A BACK UP OF ALL YOUR FILES IN TO CLASS ON A FLASH DRIVE. ALSO, PLEASE BRING IN HEADPHONES TO EACH CLASS SO THAT YOU CAN REVIEW VIDEOS WHILE DOING IN-CLASS ASSIGNMENTS.******* 

When Saving Files | Save as: 

• Example: 2015_Smith_John_AccessingTools_v1
• Tag your images in Flickr with the following tag:

   interactivemediaramapo2015

  ***ALWAYS SAVE YOUR AI FILES!**

  ---

  The People Who Are Crazy Enough To Think They Can Change The World Are The One’s Who Do.

# 1 | SYMBOLS PALETTE

Symbols and how to use them.
Download Project Files

Complete exercise and save as follows: 2015.4.13_Last Name_First Name_SymbolsPalette 

# 2 | THE MAGIC WAND

Look at the magic wand tool and how it’s used for “fuzzy” selection.

Complete exercise and save as follows: 2015.4.13_Last Name_First Name_MagicWand 

# 3 | ART BOARDS

Look at how to use art boards in Illustrator.

Complete exercise and save as follows: 2015.4.13_Last Name_First Name_ArtBoards 

# 4 | GRADIENTS

Take a look at how to use the gradient tool to create sophisticated visual effects.

Complete exercise and save as follows: 2015.4.13_Last Name_First Name_Gradients 

Alan Watts – What if Money Were No Object?

# 5 | USING MASKS

Take a look at how to use masks to isolate and eliminate vector elements.

Complete exercise and save as follows: 2015.4.13_Last Name_First Name_Masks 

# 6 | VECTOR EFFECTS

Learn how to apply special effects to your vector illustrations.

Complete exercise and save as follows: 2015.4.13_Last Name_First Name_Vector 

# 7 | 3D TOOLS

Research 1
Research 2
Sketches – low and high fidelity sketches
Illustrator Iterations of Project I including front, back, spine and logo
Final .ai and .pdf files

Word document, minimum 300 words,

• Project Research & Conceptual Sketches
• Preliminary Comps (Sketches – multiple iterations)
• Final Comps (Sketches – multiple iterations)
• Preliminary Logo Comps (Sketches – multiple iterations)
• Final Logo Comps (Sketches – multiple iterations)
• Preliminary Logo and Label Comps – designed in Illustrator CS6
• Word document, minimum 300 words,

@@Deliverable@@

• Create a folder date-lastname-firstname-illustrator-project I
• Place ALL files inside that folder
• Place the folder inside your DropBox
• Command click on the folder to SHARE LINK
• Copy link
• On week 12 comments, give me a link to your DropBox folder
• ALL PROJECT ITERATIONS SHOULD BE ON YOUR PROJECT WEBSITE PAGE

#1 | Layerless Thinking

Explains how layers are used (or not used) in Illustrator. Download project file here.

Complete exercise and save as follows:2015.3.30_Last Name_First Name_LayerlwaaThinking

#2 | Locking & Hiding

Let’s look at manipulating groups by locking and hiding. DOWNLOAD the source file here.

Complete exercise and save as follows: 2015.3.30_Last Name_First Name_LockingHiding

Please give me a link to your project post.

Information Architecture

The role of an Information Architect in Web development is to develop the structure, labeling, and navigation schemes of the site. This phase is alternately known as Interaction Design and Experience Design and Information Design.

The Site Outline is the first step in this process. Now we are going to visualize our Information Architecture in the form of a Functionality Specification or Functional Spec.

With the Functional Spec you create a blueprint for your site much the way an architect does for a building. The purpose of this spec is to synthesize needs identified in the requirements document into a concrete plan for development. It includes a visual map of the overall hierarchy and flow of your site, and detail views for each interface or page. At this point in the process, we are not concerned with the graphical interface of images, colors, and fonts that will go into your site, but the outlining basic structure and functionality.

WEB DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

Site Map

A site map is a  flow diagram of the pages contained in your website. This is the essential information architecture needed to build your website.

Tips for creating usable navigational systems:

Navigation should:

• Be easy to learn.
• Be consistent throughout the website.
• Provide feedback, such as the use of breadcrumbs to indicate how to navigate back to where the user started.
• Use the minimum number of clicks to arrive at the next destination.
• Use clear and intuitive labels, based on the user’s perspective and terminology.
• Support user tasks.
• Have each link be distinct from other links.
• Group navigation into logical units.
• Avoid making the user scroll to get to important navigation or submit buttons.
• Not disable the browser’s back button.

Usability First is a great resource for developing your website. Go to this link and READ IT!

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Your impulse as a designer may be to skip the functional spec and jump right into graphic design. The problem with this is that it is too easy to get caught up in aesthetic decisions which can overshadow the functionality and usability of your site.

Here’s an example of what a sitemap could look like.

Site Map

You can create your sitemap using any number of different tools. Here are a couple of great tools used to create sitemaps. Great designer resources.

• WriteMaps
• SlickPlan
• Gliffy
• Moqups

Create an outline of  your website and include:

• Content Inventory: a hierarchical view of the site content, typically in a spreadsheet format, which briefly describes the content that should appear on each page and indicates where pages belong in terms of global and local navigation.
• Site Maps: visual diagrams that reflect site navigation and main content areas. They are usually constructed to look like flowcharts and show how users will navigate from one section to another. Other formats may also indicate the relationships between pages on the site.

#1. DO NOW – Create a SITE MAP for the Charity Water homepage.

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CREATING A FUNCTIONAL SPEC

For our purposes, the Functional Spec will consist of a Site Map (or Site Flow) and a set of Wireframes.

The Site Map is a visual representation of all the pages of the site and how the user navigates through them.

A Wireframe is a diagram that represents the layout, content, and functionality of each page.

• Del.icio.us links for Information Architecture

You can create these documents in any drawing or page layout program you are comfortable with. A great resource for making wireframes is Google’s Mockingbird. It’s a Google Chrome add-on.

  Wire frame: Where Content Elements Appear Within the Page

Wireframes are rough illustrations of page content and structure, which may also indicate how users will interact with the website. The first step is to great these diagram to establish page layout and then you will move to the visual design. Wireframes are useful for communicating early design ideas showing exactly what information, links, content, promotional space, and navigation will be on every page of the site. Wireframes may illustrate design priorities in cases where various types of information appear to be competing.

Since a site map does not indicate any hot links that may appear within a page, your wire frame will help you to determine how a user will navigate through your site beyond the main navigation. The purpose of a wire frame is to determine where each content piece will be displayed on the page, and which pieces will be displayed most prominently.

You do not need to worry about how each piece will look. The wire frame example below uses a tabbed navigation approach, however this visual is merely a placeholder and the designer may take a totally different aesthetic approach once the design phase begins.

Wireframe and Design Elements Planning

• Sketch out the basic navigation structure for your site
• Identify the number of pages

Hand-drawn Wireframe

 

Grid Design of a Wireframe

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#2. DO NOW – Create a HAND DRAWN WIRE FRAME for the Charity Water homepage. Then, using Photoshop, create the grid layout for the Charity Water homepage.

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INTERFACE DESIGN PRINCIPLES

Ok, we’ve gone through the Discovery phase, and determined what we want our site to be, who it is for, and what it is going to contain. We’ve mapped this all out in our functional spec. Now its time to bring to life with the next step in the Design Phase, known variously as Interface, Visual, and Graphic Design.

The Basics

Function First. A Web site is like a chair. Aesthetics don’t make up for poor usability. That beautifully carved and varnished cherry wood contraption in the corner is no good if you can’t sit in it.

Your interface is a frame for the content of your site. Just like a piece of fine art, the frame shouldn’t overshadow the picture.

Don’t make me think. Your Web site isn’t a puzzle for your users to solve. When they hit the home page, it should be immediately apparent what they can do next. Think about it, when you go to a Web page, do you carefully read every word and weigh your options before clicking to the next page, or do you quickly scan and take a shot at the best guess for what link or button will get you what you want?

Don’t reinvent the wheel, unless what you really need is a jetpack. At this point, Web designers have figured out the best solutions to the basic Web problems. And, visitors to your site spend 99% percent on other peoples sites. So give them something familiar.

Where am I? Where can I go from here? Clear, persistent navigation is crucial to a successful site.

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PAGE SIZE

Unlike a printed page, you can not predict or truly control the amount of pixels you users will see. Here’s a few quick stats to check out:

2013 Monitor resolutions:

MOST POPULAR USED screen resolution: 1366 x 768  
1280×800 – 18.7%
1024×1024 – 11.5%
1200×800 – 10.7%
1920×1080 – 8.1%

(These stats are from The Counter)

To further complicate things, now many users have the ability to view the Web through mobile devices. The iPhone, for example, has a screen size of 480×320.

You’ve got two main options:

1. Use a fixed layout, and design for the lowest common denominator. Since 11.5% of users are still looking at the Web at 1280×1024, build for them and assure that the largest amount of users will be able to easily view your page.
2. Use a flexible layout, one that resizes to optimally fit the current browser window.

Regardless of which size you decide to go with, building to optimal page size means keeping key elements “above the fold.” Key elements include navigation, branding, and enough page content for the main points to get across. Remember, users will scroll horizontally or vertically but rarely both. Additionally, they don’t want to scroll through more than a couple of screens of content. Pages longer than that should be broken up. The maximum visible page area is actually smaller than the screen size due to browser interface elements.

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A few good links

• Don’t Make Me Think Sample Chapter
• Principles of (Web) Design
• Interaction Pattern Library
• Jakob Nielsen on Screen Size
• Useful Photoshop templates

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CREATING A DESIGN MOCKUP

Creating a template

1. Open the wireframes that you created for your site. You are going to use this as a guide for setting up your template. For every distinct interface that you have defined for your site, you will need to make a mockup for it. If your page layout doesn’t vary much from page to page, you may be able to use a single document and sets of layers to contain all the permutations.
2. Create a new document in Photoshop or Illustrator. Go to File > New
3. Set the following document settings:
   • Size: 1366×768, depending on what size you decide to build for
   • Resolution: 72 pixels/inch
   • Mode: RGB
   • Contents: Transparent
4. Open your layers palette: Window > Layers.
5. Create and name separate layers for each part of your design grid. Typical sections that your site may have are:
   • Body (background color or pattern)
   • Branding / Header (Logo and Site Title)
   • Sidebar
   • Global Navigation
   • Content
   • Section Heading
   • Copy (sub-headings, paragraphs, lists, bullets and inline links)
   • Footer (copyright and email link)
6. Turn on your Rulers: Window > Show Rulers
7. Use guides to define the sections of your design grid. Click on the Move Tool in the Tool palette and drag a horizontal and vertical guide from each ruler.
8. Use the Photoshop or Illustrator tools to create your mockup. The mockup should show the client how the final interface will look. Specify logo, color scheme, fonts and positioning.
9. Once you have finalized the your mockup you are ready to slice and optimize your images.

• Use the images, colors, fonts, and icons from the Charity Water homepage to complete this. You can take screen shots of each section of the homepage, create a new layer in photoshop for each section, and create one psd.

#3 DO NOW – Create a STYLE FRAME for the Charity Water homepage.

 REVIEW

Wireframe and Design Elements Planning

• Sketch out the basic navigation structure for your site
• Identify the number of pages

Mock-ups based on requirements analysis

• Using tools like Go  Mockingbird, layout the main pages on your site
• Keep your design elements organized

Review Cycle

• Designing anything includes a series of iterations.
• Review the entire site layout and make changes PRIOR to coding the site

Styleframes

• Using the wireframes you created as a base, add style elements to your pages.
• Include the following:

1. Colors: find the hexadecimal # for your colors
2. Add your images to the layout
3. Add your videos to the layout
4. Add your icons and/or illustrations to the layout
5. Add dummy text

Resource links for this phase:

• Printable Sketch Templates for Wireframing
• Go  Mockingbird
• Color Scheme Designer
• Type Tester, font comparison
• iPlotz, online template and wireframing tool
• Stripe Generator
• Favicon Generator
• Icon Finder
• Stock Exchange, free stock photos

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CREATING A DESIGN MOCKUP RESOURCE

Here’s an example of a multi-page design comp:

Multi-page design comp

Here’s what the actual site looks like when fully design an coded.

Good resource: 10 Tips for Creating Website Mockups

Week 7 | Homework

Delicious:

DUE WEEK 9 | Complete the THREE Do Now Tutorials listed:

BANNER ADS

Create a banner ad campaign for any existing New Jersey nonprofit of your choice using five different banner ad dimensions from the standard web sizes. You will be required to animate TWO of the five ads.

A few New Jersey nonprofit suggestions:

1. Covenant House New Jersey
2. Eva’s Village
3. Community Food Bank of New Jersey 
4. Little Kids Rock
5. Also check out Charity Navigator which ranks charity. Sort the search by rankings. Four stars is the top ranking, reputable nonprofits.

• List the name, mission and URL of your chosen NJ nonprofit
• Research – with comments for each piece of research
• Inspiration – with comments for each inspiration
• Mind Map
• Sketches of Each of the Five Sizes
• Color Sketches of Each of the Five Sizes
• Photoshop Iterations
• Final Photoshop Files

The above are due on Monday, week 8.

Here are some useful design tips:

1. When you design your ad, keep it simple and clear, free of clutter with a message that’s easy to read. It must jump out from the rest of the message.
2. Use animation, but sparingly. You don’t want to irritate the viewer.
3. The animation should not interfere with the design or message.
4. The animation should loop no more than ten times.
5. Keep file sizes small. It’s important that your animations load quickly. While Flash creates great animations, it can also create large files. For this reason it’s better to use compressed JPEGs or GIF files.
6. When designing a banner, it’s important to understand the importance of branding, so make sure you use the company logo in some way.
7. Make sure your message and call to action is on the first page in case the user decides to stop the animation.
8. Use bright blue, green and yellow colors. Avoid red.
9. Some words that can improve your click through ratio (CTR) are: Click here, submit and free.
10. Make sure the banner links to the page that has the information mentioned on the banner. Don’t make them hunt for it.

DESIGN RESOURCES
Standard Web Banners
Banner Ads: Excellent Examples for Inspiration