Blogs in FdA Digital Media Design
15 years ago
Web Standards Essay
Web Standards
In this essay I will be covering the key concepts in web standards and the reason for them being followed. I will look at a few reasons why compliance is necessary, Interoperability, accessibility and the need for Search engine optimisation.
Interoperability is a way of making sure a diverse collection of systems can work together (inter-operate) and exchange files between them. This is key within Internet and computing as if all the computers were to work on different plains, there would be no basis for the Internet. There would be no default for a site and therefore each computer would see a different thing. “In our globalised society and given the increasing diversity of systems and applications, interoperability makes possible the development of a mass market and avoids the undesirable effects of fragmentation.”
This is why standards help to reach a required starting point for the Internet and Web sites, and therefore creating an international business.
Web Accessibility is another of the standards that all sites should comply to as it is seen as discrimination if they do not reach the required standards. Web Accessibility enables people with a variety of disabilities and learning difficulties, the opportunity to use aids to help them view sites. “When sites are correctly designed, developed and edited, all users can have equal access to information and functionality”. For example when the sites have been constructed they use correct Html text replacements for any images of graphics, this will enable anyone using text to audio Internet software or text to Braille.
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a way of making the content on your site obvious for anyone searching on a search engine. There is a technique to this art as it is all depends on the ability of the search engines to scan through the html looking for key words and not being restricted by any wrong Html codes. As Search Engines are used through out the world as a homepage and most use them for the basis of their web surfing. It is important to be high up in the search results list, this is known as “page rank”. It is common that the higher the page rank the more hits the page is going to get, this is why it is essential to enable the search engines to hunt out the key words and therefore promote the page rank and site views. A lot of big companies pay a lot of money to have a higher page rank as in the long run it will be benefiting them in terms of page views. The name SEO can also be applied to the Search Engine Optimizers, which is an industry of professional Optimizers who often offer a stand alone service to look through Html and other content to improve the page rank. There are many ways of Optimizing sites, the main ways of doing so is enabling things such as; Menus, Images, Content etc. To become more visible to Search engines. For example if you are creating a site for Lawnmowers and you wanted to come one of the top pages for the search Lawnmowers you would be better off having a page called Lawnmowers. To make this more likely to be picked up you would be better off having text links apposed to graphic based buttons. “Another class of Another class of techniques, known as black hat SEO or Spamdexing, use methods such as link farms and keyword stuffing that degrade both the relevance of search results and the user-experience of search engines. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques in order to remove them from their indices.” Link farms and Key word stuffing is a process in which you cram in the key words you want to appear on the search, as many times as possible. This is frowned upon in modern web design and can also be hunted down by the Search Engines and removed from the searches completely.
In this essay I will be covering the key concepts in web standards and the reason for them being followed. I will look at a few reasons why compliance is necessary, Interoperability, accessibility and the need for Search engine optimisation.
Interoperability is a way of making sure a diverse collection of systems can work together (inter-operate) and exchange files between them. This is key within Internet and computing as if all the computers were to work on different plains, there would be no basis for the Internet. There would be no default for a site and therefore each computer would see a different thing. “In our globalised society and given the increasing diversity of systems and applications, interoperability makes possible the development of a mass market and avoids the undesirable effects of fragmentation.”
This is why standards help to reach a required starting point for the Internet and Web sites, and therefore creating an international business.
Web Accessibility is another of the standards that all sites should comply to as it is seen as discrimination if they do not reach the required standards. Web Accessibility enables people with a variety of disabilities and learning difficulties, the opportunity to use aids to help them view sites. “When sites are correctly designed, developed and edited, all users can have equal access to information and functionality”. For example when the sites have been constructed they use correct Html text replacements for any images of graphics, this will enable anyone using text to audio Internet software or text to Braille.
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a way of making the content on your site obvious for anyone searching on a search engine. There is a technique to this art as it is all depends on the ability of the search engines to scan through the html looking for key words and not being restricted by any wrong Html codes. As Search Engines are used through out the world as a homepage and most use them for the basis of their web surfing. It is important to be high up in the search results list, this is known as “page rank”. It is common that the higher the page rank the more hits the page is going to get, this is why it is essential to enable the search engines to hunt out the key words and therefore promote the page rank and site views. A lot of big companies pay a lot of money to have a higher page rank as in the long run it will be benefiting them in terms of page views. The name SEO can also be applied to the Search Engine Optimizers, which is an industry of professional Optimizers who often offer a stand alone service to look through Html and other content to improve the page rank. There are many ways of Optimizing sites, the main ways of doing so is enabling things such as; Menus, Images, Content etc. To become more visible to Search engines. For example if you are creating a site for Lawnmowers and you wanted to come one of the top pages for the search Lawnmowers you would be better off having a page called Lawnmowers. To make this more likely to be picked up you would be better off having text links apposed to graphic based buttons. “Another class of Another class of techniques, known as black hat SEO or Spamdexing, use methods such as link farms and keyword stuffing that degrade both the relevance of search results and the user-experience of search engines. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques in order to remove them from their indices.” Link farms and Key word stuffing is a process in which you cram in the key words you want to appear on the search, as many times as possible. This is frowned upon in modern web design and can also be hunted down by the Search Engines and removed from the searches completely.
Gallery
I have gathered a selection of images which relate to my site theme and i have stylized them with an angled gradient of white. This will be the thumbnails for the gallery and I will make them link to a new tab of which will show the full sized image.
Another go at the Header
Here is another header I have created I feel that this is a lot stronger and I think I will be using this in my final site. I created it in Photoshop and have added a nice texture which looks a bit like leaves. I also added a bit of a wavy shape which is popular within web 2.0 design.
Text Wrangler
We have started learning HTML and CSS coding through the programme Text Wrangler.
Here is some code I created:
Realated Sites
As we have been given specific subjects I have ended up with Organic and Free Range Farming which I suppose is pretty easy compared to some of the subjects. I have been looking at similar sites to get an idea of the colour schemes and styles they use.
The titles are Links to the named site.
The titles are Links to the named site.
New Project - HTML/CSS
We have started a new project in which we will be looking at the text language of HTML and CSS. This is a very interesting subject as I have minimal knowledge on this but it is the basis of Web Design. I have just been dealing with the graphic side of the design but feel it is essential to understand CSS as it is the easiest way of modifying a site you have created.
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