Reading Response Week Three

This week I read Chapters 7 and 8 of The Non Designers Web Book

Chapter seven focused on the dos and do nots of website interfaces. To design a usable interface you should first plan out the website. This makes creating it a lot easier with to do lists, agendas, and focuses. The website should be contained within the viewing page and a user should not have to scroll sideways. To ensure the content fits on a page a screenshot can be taken and used as a sizing template. There are many different navigation styles, some feasible others not. A good navigation style is tabbed sites that use constant links at the top. Bad navigation style can be links that don't work or go to unrelated pages.

Chapter eight focused on recognizing good and bad design. Ugly type that is used without purpose is just that, ugly and un-useful. Broken links, broken up lines, and inactive buttons are also bad design techniques.Good design can help a user see, interpret, and use your website in a functional way. Bad design can hinder the message of your website.

This information was helpful in learning how to create my website. I plan to make a list and follow it in order to stay organized. I am going to use the design checklist to ensure I made a user friendly website. I am also going to keep the pdf file we read as a handy guide and reminder for designing. I have downloaded GIMP to try out and I read the website on ways to help master GIMP, this will be helpful for my graphics on the webpage. Reading the evaluation websites gave me an idea how websites are evaluated and how to make mine presentable and termed as a good design.