50 Coolest Websites 2005 – TIME.com Here are some interesting choices from Time Magazine as to what is interesting, informative, fascinating, or worthwhile on the web. These kinds of lists of top sites can lead to some interesting class discussions about what keeps people coming back and what makes a site appealing.
May 1st Reboot 2005 prompts pondering from Zeldman
Jeffrey Zeldman Presents The Daily Report After judging the college student entries in the May 1st Reboot 2005, Zeldman had some interesting comments. The comment I found most powerful is his assertion, “I am not worried about these mostly very talented designers; I am worried about what the schools are teaching them, and even more about what they are not teaching them. If schools can teach graphic design, mathematics, music, medicine, filmmaking and even rocket science, why is it so hard to teach web design as it really practiced?”
Why, indeed.
I have some first-hand observations about what the problem may be. Many people teaching web design classes are actually teaching Fireworks or Photoshop. Necessary skills, but not the best way to make a web site. Many people teaching web design classes have no real-world experience as web designers. Many people teaching web design classes don’t understand accessibility and/or web standards. I’m heaping up lots of condemnation here, so let me add that many people teaching web design are doing a great job and are teaching the skills that will be needed in the real practice of web design.
Colleges are often hamstrung in who they can hire because of regulations and various degrees of accountability. They may have problems trying to hire an experienced web designer instead of asking an existing approved instructor who teaches something related like digital imaging, computer science or visual communication to do the job. They may understand that they don’t have the best person for the job, but are held in regulatory strictures. In other words, they may want to to do a better job, and know how to do a better job, but for various reasons they are unable to do a better job.
No instructor goes into a classroom thinking they want to be inadequate. Perhaps they rely overmuch on a text that is outdated or not up to standards. Sometimes the texts that make life easiest for the instructor are wonderful on the surface, but underneath they are teaching deprecated code, table-based layouts, and offer no assistance with usablility, accessibility, or standards. How does an instructor select a proper text book? (I try to review textbooks every chance I get.) If instructors are looking for attractive completed projects to assign with lots of supporting materials in the way of CDs, slides, quizzes, etc., then they may be heading for a book that is outdated and does not provide real-world examples.
My opinion, as you may know, is that teachers should start with HTML and CSS and create assignments and projects out of that basic knowledge. My opinion does not express a majority opinion at most colleges, however. Who is right? Someone like me or some governmental overseer of colleges and universities? Maybe the two groups should be talking to each other a lot more.
WaSP Forms Accessibility Task Force
WaSP : Press : Releases : Archive The Web Standards Project (WaSP) announced the formation of an accessibility task force today. The Accessibility Task Force will work with accessibility organizations, technology vendors and others to help promote Web accessibility. The Accessibility Task Force will assist product developers and manufacturers in improving Web standards support within their products.
Blog, Schmog: These tips are for everyone
How to Make Your Blog Accessible to Blind Readers – American Foundation for the Blind: “Quick Tips for Bloggers
So you have a blog, and you’re worried that it might not be accessible to people with disabilities? Don’t worry! A few simple changes can increase your
blog’s potential readership.
- Choose an Accessible Service
- Describe Your Images
- Avoid the Dreaded ‘Click Here’ or ‘More…’!
- Put Your Blogroll on the Right-Hand Side
- Check the Comment Form: Is It Labeled Properly?
- Use Flexible Font Sizes
- Don’t Force Links to Open in New Windows”
Good article on basics of CSS page structure
Juicy Studio: Div Mania explains how to avoid overusing the div element and gives a good basic grounding in CSS in the process. This article could be very helpful to learners trying to figure how and when to use CSS.
Cradle to Cradle
Achieve Accessibility with Dreamweaver
I presented a program to the New Mexico Macromedia Users Group this week. The presentation is available now: Achieve Accessibility with Dreamweaver. A couple of points to keep in mind regarding the presentation: some of the demo pages were done in Dreamweaver and showed how to code something. The speaker’s notes are not shown. I’m toying with the idea of adding the speaker’s notes to the presentation, but it is fairly complete as is.
At some point in the future, this presentation may be published at Wise-Women with some revisions for their format, but you can have a go at it right now. Permission is granted to print for classroom use.