Ben Hunt’s WebDesignFromScratch just keeps getting better and better. I’ve been watching this site over the last few weeks only to see more great stuff added, like the recent Web Design Process - a complete overview of the way Ben works to design a site!
“I’ve been creating web sites for 10 years, and I’ve got much more successful at it over that time. And I’ve come into contact with lots of very clever and complex software development processes, many of which don’t produce very good results.
This is the typical process I use today on most of the sites I do (of all sizes). It focuses on getting clear on what you’re doing before you start, and staying clear while you work swiftly towards a good solution.”
So we get to benefit from Ben’s 10 years of creating web sites… how cool is that!
Web design, whether starting from scratch or redesigning, is all about planning and organisation. Think long-term but focus on short-term - and never lose sight of your customer.
After a tip-off from James Golan (Web facilitator in Sydney Institute of TAFE), I asked for an inter-library loan of “Web Re-design 2.0 - Workflow that works“, and after skimming through it yesterday I’ll certainly be asking if we can get a permanent copy in our library!
This is not a technical book about HTML or other specific technologies, but rather is about the process of designing a website for a client: “Call it a plan, call it a roadmap, call it a guide — we call it Workflow That Works, because that’s what it is.”
The book has excellent tips, visual case studies of site re-designs over time, as well as a very detailed walk-through of the complete process - from discovery through to launch and beyond.
More importantly, the accompanying website for Web Re-Design has lots of tools that you can use right now in your projects! Like an initial Client Survey, a spreadsheet to help you budget your project, and a pre-written form for additional charges that you might need to use (and these resources are just from one chapter!)
We’ve included tools in this book - tools you can use today, as in right now, as in on your current project. We offer checklists, surveys, worksheets, and forms to help you keep your project on track from initial planning through launch and beyond. (pg 3)
It seems like the authors, Kelly Goto and Emily Cotler have edited all their experience, tools and resources from their own careers as Web Professionals into one readible and usable format! If you’re thinking of taking on a web design project, I’d certainly recommend checking this book out.
I reckon I’ve got one of the best books for learning HTML and CSS in my hands, after reading through a few chapters of Head First HTML, by Elisabeth Freeman & Eric Freeman.
I came across this book while reading one of my favourite blogs: Creating Passionate Users by Kathy Sierra, and thanks to the lovely librarians at Wentworth Falls TAFE, I can now review the book for myself!
I’m excited about this book because it’s got soo many excellent ideas and activities for learning HTML and CSS from the ground up… which I’m hoping will be really useful to learners in our Web Design course!
Last week I think I nearly scared off half our group after a bunged-up exercise! We were only in our second week of the course, and one person was having some issues getting his page to look like his excellent prototype (as is completely understandable at this stage!) I thought, “hey, why don’t we all look at this together on the big screen and see what’s involved in creating a CSS version of Rob’s prototype” - stoopid move. Turned out to be a lot more complicated than I initially thought (requiring some complicated relative and absolute positioning), and waaay too complicated for a week 2 workshop! (Lesson for me: always work through exercise before demo’ing to make sure it’s at the right level!)
So this week, I’m hoping to help those learners who feel like they’re drowning in a sea of HTML tags and CSS properties by giving them a taste of this excellent book. We’ll learn some of the ins-and-outs of linking our web pages together (much more appropriate than CSS positioning for a week 3 workshop!) and have fun with some of the excellent activities from HeadFirst HTML!
An old post by Mark Shuttleworth (the Philanthropist who funds Ubuntu Linux) on Funding Free Software Projects - highlights some of the issues facing free software projects…
It’s been a crazy first week back in class, with over 20 of us starting out in the Web Design course! It’s got me thinking about better ways to facilitate our individual learning when there’s so many of us… and I’d love to have some feedback!
Just over a year ago, Genie, Jude and I did a lot of thinking about the Web Design course after going through participant feedback. To summarise, the biggest issue was that the lock-step approach (”this week we’re all learning PHP”) didn’t suit most people - for some the learning was too fast, for others too slow. So we worked pretty hard to build a learning environment where we can all learn at an individual pace that keeps us challenged but not overwhelmed, and yet still learn from each other as a social group. While there’s heaps of room for improvement, the feedback was generally good.
But I’m getting the feeling that learning at an individual pace is a lot easier with a smaller group (last semester we had around 4-8 people in class at once). So what to do now that there’s 20 of us?! I really feel that it benefits us to be able to learn at our own pace, but at the same time I don’t want people to feel frustrated because I only get around to helping them every 20mins or so.
On our orientation day (last Monday), we ran a photo chase instead of the typical college tour (which seemed to go really well… got the feeling people found it much more fun and memorable than the typical college tour that we’ve done in the past). Genie organised us into small groups of 3-5, which meant that there were only 4 groups.
This got me thinking that maybe that’s the obvious solution for us in class - instead of working individually on our mini-projects, we could work in small groups of 3 people where we’re all learning at a similar level. Helping each other with our projects - perhaps working together on each small project - is a great way to learn, and would make it much more managable from a facilitators point of view… but I get the feeling that it might not suit everyone… and that’s why I’m so interested to hear what you think! Especially if you’re part of our class (scroll down to leave a comment).