Ever try to converse with someone about business and you have no idea what they are talking about?
You either want to forget the whole thing and give up on it, or you feel rushed through a process and say yes to everything because you have no idea what they are talking about.
No 'BS' Designs wants to make our customers feel as comfortable as possible with the work that they are getting. We are not going to let you go away, not knowing what your purchasing.
Below are some terms that may come up in our conversations, as well as what we may be offering in our services:
Web Hosting - Being provided with space, connection, and services that are needed in order to store and show files on a website.
Domain Name - Location that your website can be found. What is typed into the address bar to retrieve your data. (ie) www.whethamsolutions.com is Whetham Solutions domain name. They also have purchased the domain name www.ineedawebsite.ca
HTML - Hyper Text Markup Language. Something used rather than plain text. Creates more of a visual look than just text on a page.
CSS - Cascading Style Sheets. When putting a certain style onto a website this is used to keep the data in a certain format on a separate document to keep from the actual structure on a web page.
(Marketing Terms, 2007).
Vector Based - To do with images. Made up of paths being lines or shapes that have a start and end point. These can be made into a larger size and not distort the quality of the image that you are using.
Raster Based - To do with images. Most images are raster based. Made up of pixels within grids a.k.a bitmap. The bigger you make the image the more space it takes up. Where if it is scaled down, it normally would not look blocky or loose quality although if you enhance it to a larger size, the pixels may be easier to see making the quality of the picture less.
(Tech Terms, 2009)
To find out more terminology that you may not be aware of try any of these websites!
Abacus. (2009). Web Site Design Terms & Definitions. Retrieved April 1, 2009 from http://www.abacus.ca/website-dictionary.php
This is a very resourceful site with educational definitions and terms that someone who not know a lot about Web Design or Hosting may want to consider before hiring someone or creating their own website. The information is coming from a source that identifies itself fully although the expertise and background is not found directly on this page. Since it is only terms and definitions I found it not to be bias at all. The information is giving great detail in order to understand the terms fully, although not too much information that may overload the reader. This information seems up to date and reliable. The whole page is in good layout and I appreciate the alphabetical order as I am sure you would if you are searching for a specific word.Motive Limited. (2009). The Motive Web Design Glossary. Motive Glossary. Retrieved April 1, 2009 from http://www.motive.co.nz/glossary/index.php#Q
This website is a good resource website for anyone looking to inform themselves on any online terms. It has a wide selection of terms and definitions where as Abacus had only a few terms with another source available. I like the way this page is laid out. All the definitions are not on the front page. Once you click the letter that your word begins with it takes you to a list of words starting with that letter. You find your word and click on that and it brings you to a new page. Although I did find the page it brings you to a bit of a clutter and not using easy language. You need to look up several words in order to find a simple definition. The source seems credible though and knows what it is talking about. This site also gives you the ability to give them a word that they do not provide and they will add it to their list. Motive is a very useful site. Learn more about what you want your website to be or have!
Check out these sites for ideas and helpful tips!
Burns, Joe. (2009) My Thoughts On Building A Homepage. Retrieved on February 16th, 2009. from http://htmlgoodies.earthweb.com/tutors/mythoughts.html
This article is very straight-forward and easy to understand the key ideas that you must consider when writing for the web. As Joe Burns outlines in this article, there are four basic rules to follow: offer something worthwhile for the user, keep it simple for the user to use, answer your users if you make it possible to contact you and change up the website periodically (fix problems or simply update). He makes it clear as to what are the most important things to consider when writing for the web. You must think about the homepage, images, backgrounds, colours and text. What I take from this article is to: make the homepage simple and supply the user with everything they'll need to navigate throughout the site; think about what type of image you should use- jpegs for photographs or complex images and gifs for images that consist of simple lines and colours- be careful about the size and number of images on a site as well as being considerate of users who do not want images or cannot use them (alt tags); ask yourself if the background is doing something for the site and will it disrupt the text before choosing that particular background; choose black (in most cases) for text and make sure the colours work together and are not too tiring on the eyes because the choices you make about colour can affect the website's readability drastically; and finally limit the amount of writing you put on a website. A few things I would add to this are that text must be large enough to be read and do not use very fancy typography because it will make your website illegible. I felt the author did have a bit of a bias, he mentioned things not to do when writing for the web and they were specifically things that website developers do that irritate him.Will-Harris, Daniel.(2000) Writing For The Web. Retrieved on February 16th, 2009. from http://www.efuse.com/Design/web_writing_basics.html
This article was broken down into two basic sub-categories: Content & Style and Formatting. I agree with the author Daniel Will-Harris' five key points in regards to style and content: provide useful information, be specific, be clear about what the website and all its' sub-pages can do for the user, make it personal and write the way we speak in order to keep the users' interested and make it easier to read. According to the author there are many important formatting techniques to consider when writing for the web: always start with a headline (that's where our eyes go first and what generally gets us interested), get to the point and keep it short if possible (use summaries and links so they can jump to certain sections of really long articles if it's necessary), use lots of subheadings to help the user find their way through the article, make sure headings are clearly headings (separate lines or bold text for the start of a paragraph), use bold text to make something stand out but use it sparingly, use italics to emphasize words/ phrases (can make it more conversational but make sure it used in the correct place so they read the article as you intended it), use bullets to condense important points (users will read bulleted text) and repeat the most important quotes (use different type-face and larger text to make it stand out). I did not feel the author was biased, I felt he was just informing any individual who is interested in writing for the web about the important things to consider when doing so.
Bernstein, Mark. (August 16, 2002). 10 Tips on Writing the Living Web. A List Apart. Retrieved on February 18, 2009 from http://www.alistapart.com/articles/writeliving.
This article is an educational web article for people who are interested on writing for the web. I noticed that it is mostly for those interested in blogging. I say this because Mark Bernstein talks about writing often for readers interests, writing for good reasons and researching your opinions and being able to handle those who do not agree with you. Mr. Bernstein is a chief scientist at Eastgate Systems. This is not well known as well as he may have substantial expertise on the subject of writing for the web. The author takes the readers side, while giving a writer the best outlook on what the reader is looking for. I found he was not bias but inputted a lot of his own personal information into the article. The information given is not only his own opinion, but does not go very deep and uses information that most would call common knowledge. The format is in a list style and makes it easier and enjoyable for the eyes to read. I found that the information was clear and well presented although the content was not professional. For example the last point eight is "Be Sexy" and point 10 is "Relax!" A personal blogger would find this information useful although a business employee looking to create a professional site may not find this site applicable for their line of work.
If you have any other questions, feel free to ask!