Re: [WSG] web design presentation: advice?

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 13 Apr 2005, at 1:16 PM, Zulema wrote:
ps: butterflies in my stomach means that my tummy gets grumbly as if 
I'm hungry but it's from being nervous; it's a common saying in the 
States.  As far as it being an in-code joke? No, at least i don't 
think so :-p
Uh - I know... but your original post had a typo: butterFILES. Code... 
HTML... Files... Geddit? ;-)

Sorry, I should cease these feeble attempts at humour... (oh - sorry 
again, that's humor.)

N
___
Omnivision. Websight.
http://www.omnivision.com.au/
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RE: [WSG] web design presentation: advice?

[Jason Turnbull]

> Zulema wrote:
> ps: butterflies in my stomach means that my tummy gets grumbly as if
I'm
> hungry but it's from being nervous; it's a common saying in the
States.
> As far as it being an in-code joke? No, at least i don't think so :-p

Nick was referring to you use of 'butterfiles'. Butterflies is also a
common phrase in Aus.

Glad to hear the presentation went over well, I was keen to hear what
the response would be like.

I wish more teachers were passionate about web standards. After almost
two yrs of promoting the use of CSS for layout to a local web design
teacher (without much success), an introduction to W3C standards was
introduced into the curriculum, which gave me the chance to quote W3C
regarding the use of tables for layout. It was well received, to the
extent he emailed other teachers in the faculty, stating his previous
methods of design was not the best/right way, encouraging them all to
learn about the W3C standards, only one of five teachers responded (I
not a web design student just a friend)

I'm not saying I would be a better person for the job, but that
education is extremely important, teaching these fundamental techniques
right from the start deserves all the praise it can get.

Regards
Jason 


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Re: [WSG] web design presentation: advice?

[Zulema]

thank you to all who replied with wonderful advice!
The presentation I created[1] was recieved with much love and 
appreciation.  The questions that the students asked were along the 
lines of:
1. "What do you mean when you say that IE breaks the code?"
-->  you know the answer to that one ;)
2. "What are the top browsers I should test on?"
-->  the biggies on Mac and PC: IE, Mozilla, Opera, Netscape, 
MacSafari (if possible Linux Konqueror)
3. "What are the steps I need to take to get webspace/domain name?"
-->  buy domain name; buy webspace; learn FTP; voila
4. "What's bandwidth?"
-->  every time your webpage is visited it's downloaded; monthly 
limit based on your host
5. "Do I have to pay to get X search engine to crawl my site?"
-->  no, it's free; pay if you want top, highlighted results or to 
be placed as ads
6. "How can my website make money for me?"
-->  ads; sell your artwork (big discussion on shopping carts vs. 
PayPal)

It was so exciting to talk ab/t web standards and all that I'm 
passionate about. It felt great to explain why learning to code by hand 
is highly important before jumping into Dreamweaver (I explained that 
Dreamweaver has so many features and widgets that if you don't know what 
the code means, you won't know what it's doing, why it did A or B, etc. 
etc). I touched on other important topics like: SEO, Accessibility and 
explained that these are tools that you need to be introduced to so once 
your familiar with HTML and CSS what the next steps are to take. I also 
explained the difference between stealing code and learning from and 
changing code.

I'm so glad I got to do this and hope that everyone can do this at least 
once! Thanks again for the advice and support!

caio,
Zulema
ps: butterflies in my stomach means that my tummy gets grumbly as if I'm 
hungry but it's from being nervous; it's a common saying in the States.  
As far as it being an in-code joke? No, at least i don't think so :-p

[1] Intro to web design : http://zoblue.com/web-design/
--
Z u l e m a  O r t i z
w e b  d e s i g n e r
email : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
website : http://zoblue.com/
weblog : http://blog.zoblue.com/
browser : http://getfirefox.com/ 

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Re: [WSG] web design presentation: advice?

[Jan Brasna]

All these point are great, but party for more experienced web designers. 
Tell them please not to use imageready or wysiwyg in dw for making the 
layout. This is the way that most of visual designers use to make web 
sites. The have a different view of web design, for them it's just 
visual designing and then some magic to make the page from the image, 
that can be made by an application. Try to show them that this is not 
the good way.

--
Jan Brasna aka JohnyB :: www.alphanumeric.cz | www.janbrasna.com
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Re: [WSG] web design presentation: advice?

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 12 Apr 2005, at 12:35 PM, info wrote:
Hi all,
I'm going to make a presentation to art students on an introduction to 
 web design and would like some advice (besides how to deal with the 
butterfiles in the stomach).
Butterfiles. I love it. Is that a code in-joke?
Seriously, the other answerers have made some good points, but I think 
there are a couple that haven't been directly mentioned that should be:

1. Web design is liquid - or should be. A magazine reader can't make 
the page a different size and shape; a web surfer can. The design of a 
good web page needs to withstand resizing/reshaping - within practical 
limits.

2. The use of good coding practice (that which we refer to as 'Web 
Standards') to effect the separation of content and presentational 
styling. And this goes hand in hand with...

3. Coding in such a way as to make the web pages accessible to *all* 
visitors - whether visually or motor-function impaired, or simply via 
simpler browsing devices, like old browsers or mobile phones.

This last is a tough one to sell to visual design students (I have a 
number of clients, photographers, whose attitude tends to be 'If they 
can't see my photos, why should I care?'), but it's really a courteous 
way to design using this medium. Throw them the old (McLuhan?) 
chestnut: Form Follows Function.

Best of luck with your presentation!
N
__
Omnivision. Websight.
http://www.omnivision.com.au/
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Re: [WSG] web design presentation: advice?

[Donna Jones]

Hi, I enjoyed reading your message and good points, of course.  I've 
actually marked it for saving (well, I knew all of them but you said it 
all succiently!).

One other point I like to make is that *color is free* on the web versus 
the print world.

good luck with your presentation, Zulema!
Cheers
Donna

heretic wrote:
heya,

I'm going to make a presentation to art students on an introduction to
web design and would like some advice (besides how to deal with the
butterfiles in the stomach). 

A few points
1) 
Many artsts claim that the limitations of web design restricts
creativity. Realistically, a) it's not *that* limited, and b)
limitation is a source of inspiration anyway.

To this end I'd head that argument off at the pass by showing them the
CSS Zen Garden (it's an old chestnut to us, but they probably won't
have seen it).
2)
Continuing the faux-eastern theme, they probably need to understand
that the web is not print - again, an old chestnut: The Dao of Web
Design (http://www.alistapart.com/articles/dao/).
Let the web be the web - they will need to create a design which
changes slightly and yet retains its spirit. A few pixels here and
there is of no real concern. Just as they cannot control the mood of a
patron viewing a painting, they cannot control the equipment used by
their audience.
3)
The web is like a print job with an unlimited budget (well ok, not
really). But seriously - they won't run out of paper on the web, nor
do they have to put up with cheap paper stock.
So they will never need to cram an essay onto an A5 sheet - they can
let a website breathe and spread comfortably. White space is just as
important online as it is anywhere else.
4)
Just like anything else, the medium is not the message. Their designs
need to make the substance shine - they wouldn't get away with
typesetting a novel in 6pt microtext; so they shouldn't expect to do
it online.
5)
Finally.. not everyone has a Mac G5 with a 20inch cinema display.
So don't design pages according to their own gear! :)
Not sure any of that really helps you, but man it was therapeutic to write 
it :)
cheers,
h
--
Donna Jones
West End Webs  772-0266
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Re: [WSG] web design presentation: advice?

[heretic]

heya,

> I'm going to make a presentation to art students on an introduction to
> web design and would like some advice (besides how to deal with the
> butterfiles in the stomach). 

A few points

1) 
Many artsts claim that the limitations of web design restricts
creativity. Realistically, a) it's not *that* limited, and b)
limitation is a source of inspiration anyway.

To this end I'd head that argument off at the pass by showing them the
CSS Zen Garden (it's an old chestnut to us, but they probably won't
have seen it).

2)
Continuing the faux-eastern theme, they probably need to understand
that the web is not print - again, an old chestnut: The Dao of Web
Design (http://www.alistapart.com/articles/dao/).

Let the web be the web - they will need to create a design which
changes slightly and yet retains its spirit. A few pixels here and
there is of no real concern. Just as they cannot control the mood of a
patron viewing a painting, they cannot control the equipment used by
their audience.

3)
The web is like a print job with an unlimited budget (well ok, not
really). But seriously - they won't run out of paper on the web, nor
do they have to put up with cheap paper stock.

So they will never need to cram an essay onto an A5 sheet - they can
let a website breathe and spread comfortably. White space is just as
important online as it is anywhere else.

4)
Just like anything else, the medium is not the message. Their designs
need to make the substance shine - they wouldn't get away with
typesetting a novel in 6pt microtext; so they shouldn't expect to do
it online.

5)
Finally.. not everyone has a Mac G5 with a 20inch cinema display.
So don't design pages according to their own gear! :)


Not sure any of that really helps you, but man it was therapeutic to write it :)

cheers,

h

-- 
--- 
--- The future has arrived; it's just not 
--- evenly distributed. - William Gibson
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Re: [WSG] web design presentation: advice?

[Wsg]

Zulema, good luck on your presentation. 
Here's a point you might like to bring up .. .designing for the web is
similar to, but not the same as designing for the printed page with glass in
front.    
I'm doing contracting work at the moment and the designer I have to work
with has a 'printed page' mindset.  He gets his knickers in a twist if
the boxes on the screen arent always the right size, and if the gaps between
one box and another are not pixel perfect and if the boxes arent identical
in width.   It's because he thinks up his designs as though
they're printed then converts that thought to the screen.   
He's bound to a life of frustration, because Macs are different to PCs in
resolution and in colours.  Different machines have different
resolutions, different preferences set etc.  His life will never be
easy while he maintains his current mindset. 
If he can let go of the notion that designing for the printed page and
for the web are different disciplines, he'll have a much easier life. 
He ought to start out knowing that he's going to have fluid layouts,
colour variations between one machine and another, users who like fonts
bigger or smaller than others and that they should be allowed
to.   Then if he thinks that way from the beginning, the designs
he comes up with will have that flexibility built in. Then his time writing
html and CSS will be far easier and his sites will work far better.
You wouldn't approach designing a car the same way you approach designing
a bus, even though they both have colours, upholstery, engineering, wheels
etc.  And that analogy applies to web design as opposed to print
design.  There are a lot of similarities but they arent identical
jobs.
Good luck with the presentation - let us know how it goes.
CheersMike KearWindsor, NSW, Australia,Macromedia Advanced
Certified ColdFusion DeveloperAFP Webworkshttp://afpwebworks.com

- Original Message From:
wsg@webstandardsgroup.orgTo: "Web Standards"
Subject: [WSG] web design presentation:
advice?Date: 12/04/05 02:36Hi all,I'm going to make a presentation to art students
on an introduction toweb design and would like some advice (besides how
to deal with thebutterfiles in the stomach). First the
stats:[snip]


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