This series of lessons will provide a thorough understanding of the fundamentals of developing interactive Web content. The primary goal is to enable the student to carry out Web design responsibilities at a professional level. Other training courses only cover the mechanics of HTML. At The Web Academy, you'll also learn about the evolution of the technology, creating a successful "user experience" and much more!
Introduction
- Origins of the Web
- Evolution of Browsers
- What happened to Mosaic?
- What happened to Netscape?
- HTML Standards
- Authoring Tools
- Basic HTML - Getting Started
- Page Structure
- Tags and Attributes
- Logical vs. Physical Formatting
- Introduction to Style Sheets
- HTML and XHTML
Why do we learn this?
In order to understand the capabilities of the Web and to evaluate trends and products, it's important to study a little history (of both the technology and the industry).
Authoring tools (such as Macromedia Dreamweaver and Microsoft FrontPage) are not covered in these lessons. In order to evaluate the possible benefits and drawbacks of these tools in your organization, you'll need to understand the underlying HTML markup. If you're already using an authoring tool, this course will give you deeper knowledge about how that tool actually works.
Recently, cascading style sheets (CSS) have changed the way
Web sites are created and maintained. This important feature
will be covered from our very first discussion of HTML and
throughout the course.
More HTML
- Lists
- Tables
- Creating Links
- The Format of a URL
- Links to Other Sites
- Links within a Site
- Intra-page links (and why to avoid them)
- Enhancing Links with JavaScript
- Images
- Alignment, Scaling
- GIFs, JPEGs and PNGs
- Performance Considerations
- Colors and Colormaps
Why do we learn this?
Tables were designed to present tabular data (rows and columns of information). However, tables have come to be used more frequently as a means of doing page layout. Images and blocks of text can be arranged on the page with a great degree of control by using tables. We'll also compare tables with the positioning capabilities of style sheets.
Understanding the two main graphic formats used on the Web,
particularly the tradeoffs related to compression techniques,
will allow you to use images
creatively while minimizing download times.
Creating an Informative, Engaging Web Presence (and more on Graphics!)
- Usability
- The Goals of a Site
- Rewards, Responsiveness and Interactivity
- Analyzing Access Logs
- Avoiding Sensory Overload
- Graphics
- Transparent Images
- The Browser-Safe Palette
- Backgrounds and Special Effects
Why do we learn this?
Certain sites on the Web are fun, informative and engaging.
Others can be irritating, fatigue-inducing and just plain
boring. Here we learn about the subtle human factors,
perceptions and guidelines that can make your site one that
users enjoy visiting.
Imagemaps
- Whole-image links
- Map information
- The <MAP> and <AREA> tags
- Overlapping and composite areas
- Imagemaps vs. sliced images
Why do we learn this?
Imagemaps allow highly graphical user experiences and can set
the "look and feel" of a site. Client-side imagemaps combined
with a little bit of JavaScript can help reduce "wasted clicks"
by providing information about links before the users
selects one.