Presentation Transcript
Slide 1:Evaluating Websites By: Joseph Micallef B.Ed(hons), Dip.CS.Ed
Slide 2:Why do we want to develop a school or class website?!!? It is therefore an opportunity where you can:
Display the students’ work
Publish the school’s newsletter
Give a virtual tour of the school
Project the strengths and ethos of the school.
Slide 4:Who is our target AUDIENCE?!!? How do we encourage repeat-visits?!!?
Slide 7:Even if we are NOT professional web designers (that’s a different course), we can still make good websites if we follow certain design principles: Decide which colour scheme to use.
Choose the layout.
Choose the fonts to use – try not to use more than 2 different fonts.
Make it consistent – ie. similar pattern throughout, same navigation system throughout.
Use tables to organise large chunks of text.
Use Cascading Style Sheets (or Styles or CSS).
Try to make pages load quickly.
Use Thumbnails for photograph albums.
Do not overdo it with animations.
Slide 8:Make a plan of the site, create the pages and then add the links between them.
Keep the navigation consistent. Include a link to the Homepage on every page. Use alternative routes through the material. Check that the links work.
Organise and group your information in a logical order. Make use of a site plan, an index or a local search facility.
Check if the site is displayed and works properly in both major browsers (Internet Explorer and Netscape). Provide links to sites from where the visitor can download any necessary plug-ins such as Macromedia Flash and Adobe Acrobat Reader (for PDF files)
Slide 9:Is the contents accurate, up to date and complete? (author, date last updated etc)?
Is the style and language used appropriate to the subject area and the target audience?
Does the site have interactivity?
Can search engines index the site (what the site is about indicated in the homepage of the site itself – use of meta-tags)
Slide 10:Questions???
Slide 11:Now for our first ACTIVITY