Web Design for Designers

Course Outline

Web Design Theory
• Information Architecture
• User and client requirement analysis
• Task flow
• Categories and attributes
• Interaction Design
• Affordances
• Cues
• Constraints
• Standards
• Mapping
• Cognitive models
• Screen Design
• Properties of the medium
  • platform variability
  • interactivity
  • physical properties
• Colour
• Form and layout
• Information design
• Typography for the Web
Web Design Practice
• Code
• Markup
  • Hand-coding HTML
  • HTML 4.01 Transitional, and other Document Type Definitions
  • Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
  • XML (eXtensible Markup Language) - WAP, X3D, etc.
  • Standards and conformance testing
  • How to deal with browser idiosyncracies
• JavaScript
  • Dynamic HTML
  • Applications of scripting languages
• Scripting languages overview
  • Perl, Python, PHP, ASP etc.
• Graphics
• Preparing graphics for online delivery
• Optimising and compression
• Graphic file formats
• Rich media
• Video and audio
  • Shooting and editing video for online delivery
  • Video formats
    • Quicktime
    • Windows Media
    • Real Player
    • MPEG and AVI
    • Other formats
  • Sound design
  • Audio formats
    • MP3
    • .au, .wav, etc.
• Animation and interactivity
• Shockwave
• Flash
• Quicktime VR
• VRML
• Java
• Other plugins
• Professional Practice
• Web Development Team roles & communication
• Real-world production processes
• Site promotion and search engines
• Usability analysis and testing
• Publishing systems