Week 09: Web Authoring Part 1

Tutorial Exercises

• What are the principles of good web design? How should 'digital design' differ from 'print design'?
  
• How does web design impact on the discoverability, authority and trustworthiness of a resource?
  
• Why are frames problematic?

Lab Exercise

• Select a web resource from each of the following sectors - government, private enterprise, personal/hobby. For each resource assess how well it meets usability standards, principles of good web design and the functional requirements for web design. What are the implications of failing to meet these requirements? Do the implications differ for different sectors?
  
• Begin your preparation for the project assignment by searching for existing web resources in your chosen domain. Assess each against the four Cs of citability, coherance, communicability and compliance. Also assess what technologies are being employed - e.g. static or dynamic pages, use of databases, search functionality, etc.

Review Questions

1. What is the host computer/path/fragment or query portions of the following URLs? Describe the URLs in language that a human could understand.
   
   • http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au
     
   • http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/teaching/tfac/course/L000008b.htm
     
   • http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/tia/116.html#478
     
   • http://barney.asap.unimelb.edu.au/bs/bssearch.php3?sname=&cname=&scifield=&bdateinf=1950&bdatesup=2001
     &gender=fem&maxresultflag=10&formsub=true&startrow=0
     
   • http://barney.asap.unimelb.edu.au/bs/bssearch.php3?sname=&cname=&scifield=&bdateinf=1950&bdatesup=2001
     &gender=masc&maxresultflag=25&formsub=true&startrow=0
     
   
   
2. Define the following terms - root directory, absolute reference, relative reference
   
3. Are URLS from the discussion forum of WebRaft citable?
   

Articles

• Bush, Vannevar, 'As We May Think', The Atlantic Monthly, July 1945, 1945, http://www.w3.org/History/1945/vbush/.

Conference Papers

• Berners-Lee, Tim, 'Hypertext and Our Collective Destiny', in "As We May Think" -- A Celebration of Vannevar Bush's 1945 Vision, An Examination of What Has Been Accomplished, and What Remains to Be Done, 12-13 October 1995, http://www.w3.org/Talks/9510_Bush/Talk.html.

Reports

• Safeguarding Australia's web resources: guidelines for creators and publishers, National Library of Australia, December 2000, http://www.nla.gov.au/guidelines/webresources.html.

Resources

• The World Wide Web Consortium, W3C, 1994, http://www.w3.org/.
• Human/Machine Interface Interest Group, Usability Testing Resources, Library and Information Technology Association, 2000, http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/campbell/hmiig/usabres2.htm.
• Lynch, Patrick J. and Horton, Sarah, Web Style Guide, 2nd edn, 2002, http://www.webstyleguide.com/.
• Neilsen, Jakob, useit.com: Jakob Nielsen's site (Usable Information Technology), 1995, http://www.useit.com/.
• Web Design Group, HTML Help by the Web Design Group, 1996, http://www.htmlhelp.com/.

Resource Sections

• 'Web Design Library', in Builder.com, CNET Networks Inc, 1995-2000, http://builder.cnet.com/webbuilding/0-7650.html.
• Nielsen, Jakob, 'Are Users Stupid?', in Alertbox, Nielsen, Jakob, useit.com, February 2001, http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010204.html.