I made a wordpress site

Given that I really ought to practice what I preach, I set out to make a wordpress site this morning after posting, below. And I succeeded, and it wasn't too difficult, and nothing bad happened when I made mistakes ... All in all it took me two hours, from start to finish.

I found out you can get a free wordpress site if you keep the "wordpress" in the url: so my site is called "thosethat" and is listed at http://thosethat.wordpress.com/

I chose the title as a ironic riposte to the old saying "Those that can, do, and those that can't teach" :-D

If you'd like to make you own start at this site: https://en.wordpress.com/signup/

Wordpress for your website

A few students are already experienced in working with Wordpress for their website; which is great. Some others are trying it out: if you are, I'm very happy to support you in this, and appreciate the time and effort you are putting in to learn a new skill. Here is a link which helps explain how to go about it.

One of the main objectives of this unit is to help and encourage you to step out of your "ICT comfort zone" and acquire new knowledge and skills, so well done on those students who are doing exactly that!!

Tutorial task today

Please do online research using this blog as a starting point to answer these questions:

• When embedding photos in your website you need to consider copyright issues. What does this mean, in practical terms, for your webpage assignment?
• How can you improve web accessibility for people with disabilities?
• What percentage of the population are colour-blind? Which colours are most affected?
• What are some of the major mistakes made in designing webpages?
• What aspects of navigation and labelling are most important?
• What three measures can you take to improve the readability of your webpage?
• What are some of the quality criteria for website excellence?
  

Profit and the internet: seven misconceptions

This link leads to a pdf of a very useful article on misconceptions surrounding making profit using the internet. Use this article to talk about your website, or for your portfolio (or both!). It was originally published in MIT Sloan Management Review; Summer 2001; 42, 4; by ABI/INFORM Global.
Remember always to cite the original source in your work.

E Commerce and web site design: academic article

This link will take you to an academic article by H. Joseph Wen, Houn-Gee Chen, and Hsin-Ginn Hwang, called "E-commerce Web site design: strategies and models", published in the journal Information Management & Computer Security 9/1 [2001] pp.5-12

Powerpoint: Web design strategy and techniques

Translate your webpage or blog into other languages

Would you like to have a button on your webpage or blog site that allows readers to read your site in other languages? This widget offers a free Google Site Translator. Visitors can click on a country's flag to view any page of your blog or site in a selection of languages. For more on Widgets see the earlier post on this site.

Need help with some web design features?

Web design as an art and science is a fascinating component of ICT. If you need some help with design features, Dmitry Kirsanov has a web site which offers tutorials on many aspects of web design. It's worth a visit!

Copyright free stock photos

When embedding photos in your website you need to consider copyright issues. You can't just grab photos from the web: they may be subject to copyright. use your own photos or take them from a reputable photo stock exchange site. Click on the link for a good example.

So, how do blind people access information on the web?

I'm glad you asked that question.

You can read the answer on this site, which is about improving web accessibility for people with disabilities.

E = Q x A and web design

Effectiveness = Quality x Acceptance

If you want an effective web presence, you need a site that is of high quality, and is accepted by your target audience.

You can have the most beautifully designed, multicoloured, beautifully written English language website in the world (so Quality = 100%) but your target audience is either
-blind,
-speaks only Swahili, Latvian, and African Click, and / or
-isn't connected to the web anyway
(so, Acceptance = 0%),

... then the effectiveness of your web presence is going to be Q (100) x A (0)= Effectiveness (0).

So, before you build your web site you will need to consider who the target audience is, and what constitutes quality as far as web presence goes. Here are some links that you might find very useful.

World Best Website Awards: http://www.worldbestwebsites.com/criteria.htm
Vincent Flanders, Web Pages that Suck: http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/
Jakob Nielsen, How users read on the web: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html
Navigation and labelling: http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/support/Training/Online/webdesign/navigation.html
Use of colour in web design: http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/support/Training/Online/webdesign/color.html

PS Try and find out what percentage of people in the world are, to a greater or lesser extent, colour blind. The results will surprise you. If you find the answer post it here as a comment!

How users read on the web

Successful writing for the web entails understanding how people read on the web. According to Dr Jakob Nielsen, people don't! They don't read - they scan instead. You can access his studies on readability, research how people read websites, and learn how to improve web writing strategies.

The information is based on academic studies which illustrate how little people read on the web ...

I wish the web designers of many university websites (including our own) would have read Dr Nielsen's short and informative page ...