Slicing

            To put an image into Dreamweaver you just need make a CSS style for a div and go to background. There you can make it a color or any photo you may have saved. One good way to put things into the background is by creating your image in Photoshop first and then slicing it. This was you can cut the image into different sizes and save your sliced pictures. When you go into Dreamweaver you can put it back together piece by piece. This is really nice for images that you can’t create in Dreamweaver and need the tools of Photoshop to complete.

            To slice you just go to your knife icon in your palette and zoom in very close to your picture were you can see every pixel. When you size your div you do so by using pixels so you want to make sure your image is exactly the right size.  After slicing over what you want or completing the entire the size of the site you save it. Make sure to save it into your public folder under images so can have it with you whenever your working on them. Then they are ready for use, you can use a few or all of them.

The ugliest web site

            When searching for bad websites I found one that is proud to be the ugliest website. It’s called thebiguglywebsite.com. This site really is awful, everything that you could do wrong in a site they are doing. It has a number of typefaces in a number of different colors, with absolutely no hierarchy, which makes it hard to figure out where to look first and how to move around the page.  Some of the sentences are even flowing of the page; probably do to not using relative positioning.  They have big flashy animation that is extremely distracting and serves no purpose. It is really just a bunch of randomness that is hard to look at.  Websites like this are difficult for anyone to look at and it is the kind of the site that people would just breeze by because they can’t get what they want out of it immediately. 

My favorite site

            When looking over some graphic designers personal pages to get inspired for my own I stumbled onto one that I loved. It was bechira.com, it is interesting to look at and very organized. Even when only using black, white and shades of gray you can make a site very unique. It looks like he cut the site down in quarters and shows off his interviews, features, and other topics in blocks. Everything is very easy to see as you move down and read one after another. As you scroll down the site you can find anything someone who was interested in him would need, he has buttons for his portfolio, contact information, and resume. The hierarchy is very clear with size and with color. There are different forms of the same type, which keeps it clean and not over bearing but also doesn’t look repetitive. I think this site is excellent, it is easy to read but still catches your eye and has its own look without being “too much”. 

Tutorials

            When learning a new software there are many ways to go about it. The one that helps me the most is tutorials. I like that you can watch someone else do it and then do it yourself side by side. It is a great way to learn by doing. There are so many things to learn about Dreamweaver, and every other Adobe software, more then you can probably imagine. These programs are so powerful and there is never too much to learn about them. Some of the better tutorials that I found came from these websites. You tube is very good because a lot of people put up videos on there spare time. They may not be professionals but the tutorials are still very good. Adobe TV is another very good one, it is straight from the creators, which is nice and best of all, it’s free. To get the long tutorials with a lot of information you have to pay for them, but if you’re just looking to learn specific things the short free videos are very beneficial, and really they can teach you the same things you just have to look for it.

Akron University site

            When I go through the Akron University web site I start to feel overwhelmed and annoyed. I think this is one of the hardest websites to navigate through and it is one we have to be on almost everyday.  I think one of the most obnoxious things that a web site can do it is make every link a new window. This crowds up the desktop and makes things unorganized. It also gets confusing and makes it hard to find where your trying to go. If you accidentally close one out then you can’t go back and have to start all over again, which can be time consuming especially when trying to get your email.  To that you have to go to the Akron website, then to zipline, then to students, then to another password window, and then finally to your email. All of which have their own window. I feel that to make this site easier to navigate and more comfortable for people to be on they should just have the one window and you should be able to go back instead. This would be much more relaxing to look at. 

Advertisments

After reading a couple different “don’t do its” I found one that was very interesting. I never paid to much attention to it but it is said that the average person ignores advertisements and anything that might look like it. After seeing them so much and recognizing what not to look at, it just becomes habit. I actually do this too; I want to find exactly what I am looking for without becoming distracted.

            The three things that people ignore are banners and anything that looks like them when positioned or shaped on the page. Any kind of animation, which includes flashing, fast movement, or type moving around the page. And the last is pop-ups, probably the most ignored. When another window just pop ups most people immediately close it out without even looking at it. So if you have anything important on that page it just disappeared, and you probably upset someone. Having to close out another page just interrupts what everyone is doing while browsing.

            When designing it would be smart to stay away from any of these types of design, especially if you are trying to get something important across. When I’m browsing or even playing certain games on my iphone I don’t even notice they’re there. And that is probably how most people feel about them. 

age demographics

When designing a web page one thing you should think about is the user ability for different age groups. You might not see the same things or have the same problems as an elderly person.  One thing that designers should keep in mind is making sure people have the ability to increase the size of the text opposed to freezing it at a certain size. And going no lower then 12pt when your web site is made for that demographic. Another thing that would help is to keep things organized and not cluttered; this gives the ability to move throughout it faster and more accurately. Also, anything that is a link should be slightly larger and not moving, this way it is easy to identify and not hard to grab. While this is important for people seniors it shouldn’t be just used for them. These are rules that can help the browsing experience for everyone. Keeping in mind that everyone searching the web is not a computer wiz and maybe has never even used one; you still want your page to be able to be viewed by everyone that comes across it. Little things like these tips can make it easier for everyone.