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Advanced Expository Writing
ENGL 249S-02 * Fall 2003

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Basic Web Design

  • Becky Allen sends this site from JWWeb.com: "The High Bridge Design Group maintains an informative website called JWWeb Design. At the site, you can find a basic introduction to website navigation. The site emphasizes functionality and gives a brief explanation of good navigation."

    • Marshall Annis found the the Web Style Guide (part of which we'll read in class later): "The Web Style Guide is a very extensive site covering many aspects of web site design.  It covers basic topics such as site design and page design, as well as going in depth on topics such as how to take a user centered approach to designing your site and how to use graphics effectively. The site also gives many examples of well laid out sites that I found helpful."

  • Deepak Arora suggests this site from WannabeWebster.com: "Initially, the two basic audiences are discussed (surfers & search engines). The basic website design is explained, followed by tips on how to speed up load-time for dial up users. Also, tips on coding and compatibility are provided, followed by website "bells & whistles," such as counters, guestbooks, etc."

  • Paul Chuong provides this site from Create-A-Website-Now.com: "Create-a-Website-Now.com provides step by step instructions on how to create simple websites, making it a great tutorial for novice web designers. Aside from providing instructions, this site also contains a link which outlines the top 10 common mistakes made by website creators. Some of these mistakes include those in which we discussed in class, such as poor color choice and the use of frames."

  • John Fleming suggests this site from HTMLHelp.com: "The Web Design Group offers a great reference for HTML 4.0. The reference offers easy to follow information in an organized fashion. If you are confused about HTML coding, this site may be for you." Webmaster's Note: Of course, none of you WILL be confused about HTML coding, will you?! ;-)

  • Chris Gilmore sends this article from IOfficeDaily.com: "Harmony Major has written an article entitled "Five Quick Tips for Creating an Effective Website" that covers everything from color schemes to navigational techniques. Her article is broken down into specific sections and is focused not just on making a website, but rather an effective one. In general, this article seems very helpful because it addresses numerous techniques but appeals to first time web designers as well."

  • Stefanie Kealey provides this site from Penn State U.: This link from Penn State University is an easy to follow tutorial of website design basics. It addresses key issues of design, such as consistency, color, size, space, balance, and texture. Also included on this site for beginner web designers are "do's and don'ts", "tips and tricks", and resources for web site creators."

  • Kristy Klein and Jan Voolstra suggest this site from DreamInk.com. Jan says generally: "Dreamink.com is a site specifically built to be a web design guide. It offers tools as well as tips to build the best website possible. You can not only learn almost anything you needed to about the web, from such things as the benefits of simple design and optimized graphics, you can also learn about HTML and Javascript. Dreamink also offers a hierarchical link table that even the most novice of web users can easily navigate through it." Kristy adds: "This site has some helpful information about creating your own website. Some of the topics covered in this site include, audience targeting, styles, and browsers to name a few."

  • Jeffrey Lees found this site from Make-A-Web-Site.com: "This site describes everything that is needed for anyone who wants a create their personal web page.  There is a talbe of contents for quick and easy access to subjects pertinent to the user. The site makes everything simple, and explains why it is needed for creating a web page."

  • Julie Lauenger sends this site from "Roger" at Yahoo's Geocities: "This link describes how to create a web page using only Notepad or Word pad to someone who has never made a web page before. Using simple language many aspects of how to make a web page are described from how to find Notepad on your computer to how to add context, links, and graphics to your web page. This web page is very beneficial for the type of work we will be doing in class and aids as cliffsnotes to Lemay's book, "SAMS Teach Yourself Web Publishing with HTML and XHTML."

  • Paul Lavoie provides this site from UseIt.com: "This web site called "Top Ten Mistakes" Revisited Three Years Later" is by Jakob Nielson. He addresses design issues that should be avoided when creating a website ranging from the use of frames to the unneeded use of bleeding-edge technology. It is a good site for people unfamiliar with web design."

  • Blake Loscalzo sends this site from GrantasticDesigns.com: "This website is by Grantastic Design and describes in detail the 5 Basic Rules of web page design and layout. They suggest a website that is easy to read, easy to navigate through, easy to find, have layout and design should be consistent throughout the site and should be quick to download."

  • April Mahoney provides this site from RocketFace.com: "This page, provided by Rocketface.com, presents an outline entitled, 'How to Design a Website.' The outline is divided into five topics: Analyze, Organize, Implement, Development, and Maintain. The site instructs the reader on how to organize his/her information in such a way as to best suit his/her purpose."

  • Kevin Manoni provides this site from BuildWebSite4U.com: "An informative site with directions and advice for setting your own successful and profitable website. This site has great information on how to get people to actually view your website. The site has practical tips for search engine optimization and teaches the very basics of the code behind web pages."

  • Sophie Moravej sends this site from GeminiCreative.com: "Gemini Creative provides website designing for social and environmental non-profit organizations. They press the importance of design and usability when making a representative homepage. They offer free consultations and a portfolio of their previouse work.

  • Katie O'Keeffe suggests this site from Unplug.com: "Great Website design tips is a great source for just about any HTML or XHTML needs you may have. Topics range from graphics to beginning and expert information. This is a great site if you want to 'get your feet wet' in the HTML world."

  • Taki Naito provides this site from AllAboutYourOwnWebsite.com: "[This] is a very unbiased guide to the essential steps involved with producing and maintaining a website for every Internet purpose. It provides information pertaining to decisions involved with web designs, development, hosting, maintenance, and marketing. This site is dedicated to provide any Internet, and website user with tools and web information to find out their answers.

  • Michelle Spangle found Vince Flanders's (in)famous Web Pages That Suck (which we'll discuss in class, too): "Vincent Flanders focuses on what makes a bad website, specifically design, navigation,and content, and provides examples of past and present bad websites. He provides links of articles, books, and tools for improving one's website. Flanders also markets his own book, "Son of Web Pages That Suck."

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More Design Links and Sucky Pages

  • Becky Allen suggests HTMLGoneBad.com: "The HTML Gone Bad website is hysterical. The site uses its HTML hound dog, Sparky, to track down bad websites. The websites are divided into several different categories like "Cheeses Loves You" and "Vomitorium." The listed sites are examples of terrible content and design."

  • Marshall Annis suggests Michael Bernard's Optimal Web Design: "Michael Bernard's site "Optimal Web Design" from the Software Usability Research Laboratory at Wichita State University explains how to take a human factors approach to web design. The site covers a variety of topics, including how to make your site easy to navigate and how to effectively use images. It also covers topics such as how to make your site more accessible to children and older adults and how to make it appealing to international users."

  • Deepak Arora warns about this sucky site: Cosmic Ben: "The entire page contains a lime green background, along with black text for a great contrast which makes the site difficult to read. The background is not even consistent; one of the record reviews has an orange background. Also, the hit counter at the bottom is stuck at '1000' and will not move; it does not seem to be a real counter."

  • Paul Chuong warns against the International Martial Arts Federation of the Deaf (I.M.A.F.D) website: "The International Martial Arts Federation of the Deaf (I.M.A.F.D) homepage contains very pertinent information concerning the federation and its cause. However, the unprofessional design of the website takes away from the content of the page. On this webpage one will find blinking icons, scrolling messages, backgrounds which change with the click of a link, misspellings, and messages that quickly disappear before a visitor can finish reading it."

  • John Fleming warns against EbaumsWorld.com: "Ebaum's World contains a lot of fun things to [do] like flash games, videos, prank calls, and soundboards. Although a fun site to use, it is too cluttered and there are too many ads that distract from the content. Some of the colors used hurt my eyes when I read the text on the site."

  • Chris Gilmore warns against Reference.com: "One would think that a site titled 'Reference.com' in the area of literature would be a professional, academic looking site. In fact, the heading on the home page is gaudy advertisement for a software CD. It does provide numerous links for other sites on literature, however they are arranged in no specific order or category. It is highly unorganized and I would never recommend it."

  • Stefanie Kealey warns against this site on Maggots: "This web site http://www.zetatalk.com/food/tfood12j.htm has no introduction and one must infer from the title at the top what the writer is referring to in his short ramble. This is a pointless site and thank goodness it's extremely short because it sounds like it could get gross if he continued exaggerating on this topic. Yuck."

  • Kristy Klein warns against Psychology Online: "The site that I chose for my website analysis is called 'Psychology Online' and can be found at http://inst.santafe.cc.fl.us/~mwehr/. This site is intended to be a resource for people interested in psychology. However, many flaws take away from its value. Some of the flaws include, being too cluttered, unorganized, and the use of too many graphics."

  • Julie Lauenger sends this site from Ratz.com: "This site by John Tollet discusses features which can make a web page appear 'dorky.' It criticizes 'junk' such as counters, blinking animation, under construction signs, and advertising. Ironically, he advertises his own book, The Non-Designer's Web Book, on this web page."

  • Paul Lavoie warns against CathysRealm: "Cathy's Realm of Dream Poetry is one of the many "sucky" websites that I found on the Internet. Upon entering the site, terrible music is played, and there are far too many graphics and pictures floating around that can cause quite an annoyance while trying to browse the site. Overall Cathy could have made the site a lot less obnoxious by getting rid of the music, choosing fewer images, and omitting most of the pictures."

  • Jeffrey Lees warns against the CandleFactoryCo.com: "The webpage is awful as we saw in class. The background changes on you, there is too much information and they attempt to be funny. It shows you what not to do when creating your webpage."

  • Blake Loscalzo suggests this site from BAEM.org.uk (England): "This website gives a checklist in order to evaluate the quality of other websites and it gives two examples."

  • April Mahoney suggests PageResource.com: "Manas Tungare's article "Handy Hints for Web Designers," available on PageResource.com provides several suggestions on how to improve a web site's usability. Tungare advises readers tips on faster page loading. Designs for functional navigation bars are also included." She also warns against this site by Jeff Glover: "The author of this site, Jeff Glover, has six photographs of himself on the home page. He even uses a picture of himself to point to links to his other pages. He has written some good pointers on how to improve personal web pages, however he has broken most of his own rules."

  • Kevin Manoni suggests this page from UseIt.com: "This is a very informative site that gives examples of bad web designs that are commonly used. The article is titled "The Top Ten NEW Mistakes of web design", but was written in 1999. The information is probably still relevent. The most important information was related to not "breaking" the back button and not moving pages to new URLs. The site is easy to read and navigate."

  • Sophie Moravej warns against DeanForAmerica.com: "The official homepage of Doctor and Governor Howard Dean as the runner for the democratic presidential nominee contains both good and bad elements of website design. Although the layout is impressive, the content is overwhelming for the average voter who wants to simply browse. Some of the links lead too other pages, within the same website, that have different backgrounds."

  • Taki Naito warns against this site from HotOrNot.com: "Http://www.hotornot.com/ is one of the most useless website I have ever seen.  Hotornot.com shows pictures of seemingly desperate people who want to be rated and find a date.  It's one of a million that shows pictures of girls who want attention and see if they are hot or not by viewer ratings."

  • Katie O'Keeffe warns against the Childhood Goat Trauma Foundation website: "The Childhood Goat Trauma Foundation site is a very professional and well designed page, however a second glance at the content would suggest that the premise of the CGTF is less than scholarly. With tables such as 'statistics,' 'testimonies,' and 'links,' the viewer is prepared for a hearty dose of information, yet the reader is often shocked and entertained at best by the emotional outbursts of goat trauma survivors. The bottom line, the page is misleading."

  • Michelle Spangle suggests this page fromERCB.com: "At http://www.ercb.com/feature/feature.0027.html is a website that reviews books on web design. He argues that one can not learn how to design a good web page simply by looking at a few bad sites, as is suggested in Web Pages That Suck. However, he does praise their creative and fun designs. He also suggests Information Architecture For The World Wide Web, for their useful information on designing for your audience, developing content, graphics and color schemes, and web site promotion, but he criticizes lack of detail. This site does an excellent job sorting through what is important to learn for web design and telling you where you can find it."

  • Jan Voolstra warns against MulletsGalore.com: "While I was searching the Web for sites that sucked I came across www.mulletsgalore.com, the theme to this site is the mullet. It seems that the only objective that this site has is to present pictures of mullets. It contains no real content, and is just stupid to me. Pretty much every link on the site leads to another picture. All in all, it is a poorly designed site made to exploit the mullet."

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This page was created as technical support for Kathrine Aydelott's ENGL 249S Course, Fall 2003. Created Aug 22, 2003. Last updated Nov. 14, 2003.