Applied ICT A Level Unit 1 - ICT and Society
Block Seven - Web Design
This block develops some key web design skills and is essentially a practical block.The key objectives are:
- to develop a further understanding of the design elements of the unit 1 exam
- to demonstrate some web design methods
- to develop practical skills associated with webpage design
Web Design Basics:
It's crucial to be organised when web designing. You need to make sure that files are located properly and saved with sensible names. Once links are in place you simply can't move a file or change it's name without destroying the link.
Use a sensible folder structure and try to plan roughly your work before you go too far.
Web Basics - presentation slides
Fonts for the web - a choice that you need to make well
You might be interested to read this article from the BBC website which discusses why Comic Sans
is a bit of a nightmare as a font choice. The use of Comic Sans by the Cleveland Cavaliars owner in a letter to fans has also prompted much discussion, for example at CNN. Just think twice before you use it!
Images for the web - a single slide presentation summarising some key points
Colours and how they work - a few notes about colours to think about
A Working Design :
I've taken some content from an actual webpage (the BBC Webwise page on the Data Protection Act as it happens) and redesigned it to produce a basic annotated design which would be suitable for a unit 1 exam
Design work - a detailed design specification for the webpage
Order of work - a basic order of work which will let you create the webpage using the design and the resources below
Use this as an opportunity to become more familiar with web design software. You'll need to use the Software Guides page to find the help sheets which will show you how to use Dreamweaver effectively.
Just as in the real exam, you have a selection of text and image files to work with:
I would strongly suggest saving all these files first - try right clicking and saving them. This should make your life much easier than having to open them one at a time!
text for the page header (pageheader.txt)
text for the navigation line (navline.txt)
text for the main box template (maintextblock.txt)
text for the footer area (footer.txt)
text for the main data protection article (dataprotect.txt)
text for the sidebar (otherlaws.txt)
ICT logo image - the large one (ictlogo.jpg)
Red ICT logo image (ictlogoredsmall.png)
Download these files and then use the annotated design to create the newsletter page using suitable desk top publishing software.
Other Design Ideas:
There are lots of great webpages out there - some of which you might actually be able to implement in your exam. You can pick up loads of great tips as well.
An alternative way of learning good web design skills is by looking at really, really poorly designed sites. Where would you find these? Try the classic Web Pages That Suck - a site which catalogues poor web design and uses it to teach good habits. There are some real suckers here - enjoy!