Thursday, December 2: Workshop on Web Page Design
As I noted Tuesday, I'll be paying close attention to the quality of writing when I evaluate your web pages.  But since the Web is a graphical medium, how your page looks (including font style and color, use of white space, backgrounds, and images) is as important as what you say.  The Web certainly demonstrates the truth of Marshall McLuhan's dictum, "The medium is the message."

Design and Style Guides on the WWW
Like your writing choices, your design choices need to be guided by an understanding of your audience and the ethos you want to convey on your web page.  However, there are some general guidelines on how to design a web page for maximum readability. Jeff Glover's Sucky to Savvy web site compiles some good, non-technical advice on page design and use of backgrounds and animation (such as spinning icons, blinking text, and scrolling marquees).  Most of his advice is sound, although some of it won't apply to the pages you're creating (e.g., most of you won't be using frames or image maps). 

See also Glover's advice for Planning Your Site, which emphasizes the importance of keeping your site focused and knowing your target audience.

By Tuesday, you should have a solid first draft of your site and be prepared to demonstrate it to the class.  (Remember: FrontPage Express is available on the public computers in CSTC room 110.)  On Thursday, you'll wrap up your revising, and Ron Darschewski from EC Computer Services will be on hand to help you post your pages to the Elmhurst server.  If you don't yet have an EC e-mail account, make sure you have one by Tuesday!  (See the link to online account information below, on the November 23 workshop.)   

Tuesday, November 30: Workshop on Writing for the World Wide Web
Since this is a writing class, the quality of writing will be central to my evaluation of your web pages.  Spinning icons and cool backgrounds may be nice, but over-use of graphics can distract or even turn away potential visitors to a web site.  (How often do you wait the 10 or more seconds it takes for a graphics-heavy page to load?)  

Writing for the WWW
Writing for the Web is different from the kinds of writing that we've done so far this term--so my criteria for evaluating your writing will also be different.  One thing remains the same, though:  your writing choices should be driven your intended audience and your purpose for writing.  Ask yourself:  for whom am I writing, and how will they read my page?

In order to answer these questions, you need to understand how reading a screen differs from reading a page.  So, your first task for today is to check out Jacob Nielsen's How Users Read on the Web.  Then, draft (or revise) part of your web page, following Nielsen's guidelines, such as the use of keywords, subheadings, and bulleted lists. 

Finding Good Quality Links
As Jacob Nielsen suggests, a good way to enhance the credibility of your Web site is to include links to other high-quality information and resources on the Web.  The key word here is "quality":  there's a lot of poor quality material out there on the 'net, and if you link users to junk, you're wasting their time and damaging your own ethos.    I recommend you check out the online tutorial on Evaluation of Web Sites, which will guide you through the process of determining whether a site you're considering linking to is worthwhile.  Keep in mind that a few well-selected links, with a few words from you to tell your reader what that site offers, is better than a daunting list of dozens of sites.  Also, note that you can integrate links into your text, rather than just listing them separately--that's the beauty of hypertext.

Your second task for today, then, is to search for and evaluate several potential links that are relevant to the site you're creating.  To link these sites to your page, select Insert-->Hyperlink, then enter the URL for the site.  (If you use Internet Explorer, the address of the last site you visited should automatically appear.)    A title for the site will automatically appear, underlined and in color.   Note that you can edit this text, to call it whatever you like.  To test your link, hold down the CTRL key while clicking on the link.

Tuesday, November 23:  Workshop on creating a web page using FrontPage Express
The purpose of today's workshop is to learn the basics of creating a web page using FrontPage Express.  During class today, you should create a basic HTML file that includes the following:

• A headline or title that uses text formatting (such as bold, italics, font size, color or type) 
• Some text and an image in a table
• At least one link to another page on the web

To access FrontPage Express from the computers in OM201, select Internet Explorer from the Programs menu, then click on FrontPage Express.  Check out the online tutorial, Introduction to FrontPage Express, for instructions on how to do the following tasks:

• Create a page
• Edit text
• Add images
• Add tables

There are tons of free images and backgrounds on the web.  Simply do a search for "clip art" or "backgrounds," and you'll find a number of sites.   To download the images or background graphics to your web page, do the following:
1)  Right-click on the image or background you want.
2)  Choose Save image as. . .   (Save the file to your disk, not to the hard drive.)
3)  In FrontPage Express, choose Insert--> Image file, and select the file from your drive.  If the image does not appear on your page, it may be in an incompatible format (.jpeg or .gif is best). 

The homepage you create today won't be accessible from the web--not yet, anyway.  To access your page from the web, you must first upload it to the Elmhurst College server, or post it via another Internet Service Provider (ISP) such as AOL, Compuserve, or Prodigy.   If you wish to post your page on the Elmhurst server, you must first have an EC e-mail account.  You can set up an email account by stopping by the Computer Services office on the first floor of CSTC (ext. 3699) or e-mail your account request through the EC Computer Services homepage. 

You may use the page you create today as a warm-up, or it may be an initial draft of Project 4.  If you want to use your file as a draft, please remember to save your work to disk (not to the hard drive) at the end of class. 

If you'd like to work on Project 4 on your home computer, you can create a new HTML file with a word processor (such as Word), which can later be opened in FrontPage Express.   To create a document in Word and save it as an HTML file:
1)  Open a new document in Word, and choose Save As. . . from the File menu.   Enter text as usual.
2)  From the Save As. . . window, click on the triangle next to the Save as type: and choose HTML Document.

In FrontPage Express, simply open your HTML file to edit it.  NOTE:  Your Word/HTML document should NOT include any special formatting, such as tabs, indents, or columns--these will not transfer to FrontPage Express.  It's best just to write your Word file in plain, unformatted text, then use FrontPage Express to make it look the way you want it to look.

Last but not least. . . have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Thursday, November 18:  Analyze personal web pages
Choose 2-3 personal homepages on the Web.  (Check out The Meeting Place for a directory of personal web pages.  Avoid the X-rated ones, please.)  As a group, analyze the online ethos presented by the author of this page.  You might consider the following in preparing your analysis

• the purpose of the page (self-expression?  amusement?  connection and/or interaction with others?)
• the design of the page, including use of background and graphics
• the style and content of text
• the use of links to connect to other sites on the web

Be prepared to present one of the sites you've analyzed to the class.