Web Class Second Post about Hudson Website

For my second post I will be writing about the third project we will have to do in Web Page Design. The project is to redesign the Hudson Historical society and library web page and to make it more accessible for the person viewing the webpage and for navigating throughout the webpage. The Hudson Library Webpage is pretty simple, they use a green color for their background and the website does not have a search bar located at the top or sides of the page for navigating which makes it difficult to find what you are looking for throughout. The page as icons on the side of the page for navigation but it gets frustrating because there are so many icons on the side and it is confusing to know what all of them are. Another thing I noticed is that other libraries like the Stow Munroe Falls Library is part of facebook and myspace which is very appealing to younger generations and the Hudson library could benefit from this if they belonged to these social networking sites to let the young and old know what is going on at the library with their updates on these sites. They could also clean up their site by getting rid of all of the excess space they do not use at the bottom of the page because the viewer can scroll for a while looking at nothing on the page which is irritating for any person looking at the web page. What I wanted to do is clean up the webpage, I want to get rid of any unused space on the page, I also want to add a toolbar at the top of the page with drop down menus that gives the person more options of what they are looking at. The other thing I wanted to do is at a search tool on the side of the page that can search the site, google, or their catalog. If the person knows what they are looking for all they have to do is use the search tool.

Web 2 class, first blog.

For my blog concerning webpage two I wanted to write about everything we have been doing so far in class. So far we have looked over previous websites that needed considerable work and discussed ways on how to make the web site more aesthetically pleasing. We also discussed navigation use in a webpage. My site and others in the class also had to deal with making their website navigation more accessible to who might be viewing the page.

Another problem that a lot of the sites faced other then navigation is that there was so much information on some sites that scrolled on the side of the page would keep going on and on forever and the average person would get annoyed and sick of having to look for information. That is one thing that seems like a key to designing a page is making it easy to navigate and finding a way to capture the viewers’ attention.

Today August 31, 2009 we discussed the basic use of Dreamweaver and we were given a project that consists of designing a project about ourselves and actually putting it online so it can be used throughout the school year. I already am a little confused on what site I want to display my website because I have never done that before and I do not want to pay a site like Godaddy.com.

Does Amazon and Ebay use form elements

After looking at ebay and amazon both websites use forms.  Amazon uses forms by using the list/menu when selecting an item.  Ebay also uses this feature to make it easier for the customer to purchase a product.  Both websites also use forms by having a text field for the customer to write what product they want to buy and writing in the name so it will take them to that page.

Remaking a webpage

The webpage I will be working on is the Northeastern Illinois University, language learning labatory webpage.  The webpage has a hard to read links on the left hand side of the webpage so I will rewrite those in Fireworks.  There is also unused space at the bottom of the webpage so I will get rid of that.  The text also runs into the edge of the box they used so I will leave a space so the text is not so close to the wall.  The site is 

http://www.neiu.edu/~fldept/flanglab/

Animation used for Ebay and Amazon

The animation for Ebay and Amazon was hard to find.  For Amazon I went to view, view source using the school's Mac computers and I could not find a animated gir or flash animation to save my life.  Amazon uses a flash animation which is an AD for bank for America.  Ebay did not have any form of animation because there was already enough happening on their page and there was zero animated advertisements like Amazon.  The Ad on Amazon does not continue continuously.  The viewer roles the window down for the dog and he sticks his head out the window.  The Ad is located near the bottom of the screen and i could barely notice it with all of the great products i could buy right in front of me.  

Using CSS with Amazon and Ebay

Amazon and Ebay both use CSS.  When I went to View, View source using Safari their code was extremely long and they had an internal source.    They use a style sheet and also use java script, their page is pretty advanced and I was easy to get lost.  They definitely have advanced tags with all of the information on their website.  Ebay also has an internal source, they use css because they had div tags.  Both Ebay and Amazon use  advanced tags such as bold or underline and to arrange their products they sell on their website.  

Navigation

The navigation for Amazon is great. When you scroll over text the letters become distinguished so you know which one you are picking. There are also smaller pictures so when you click them it takes you to another window to give the details of that product. E-bay is practically the same set up. The navigation is very convenient for both sites and rollovers are great to know it is a link.