by Sheldon Ball
by Jason Hale
I am currently the owner of LeadOn Consulting. A web development and consulting company. I've spent the last two years, (since graduating from this very course) building my company and crafting web solutions primarily for small businesses like:
Prior to that I spent 25 years working for both of the major daily newspapers in Calgary.
Over the next 4 days we'll cover:
A web browser (commonly referred to as a browser) is a software application for retrieving, presenting and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web.
Before IE was released with Windows 95, Netscape Navigator had a market share of over 90%. By 2002, IE had a 95% market share and had a near monopoly on the market with IE6.
Released in late 2004, by the Mozilla foundation, Firefox quickly started innovating with features such as tabbed browsing and providing a faster more secure internet experience for users.
With the emergence of Firefox it took Microsoft 2 years to come out with IE7 in 2006 and another 3 years to come out with IE8 in 2009. This slow rate of iteration, legal battles in Europe and the emergence of Apple's Safari and Google Chrome resulted in IE's continual erosion of market share.
Today's browser landscape is constantly evolving. With the addition of mobile devices and browsers the market is more fragmented than ever. IE market share has dropped to 20% globally while Chrome has jumped ahead to 46%.
Android is a really fragmented market due to it's open source nature which results in many Android users using an out of date version of the OS with some really bad browsers. This results in many Android users not using their devices to browse online as often as IOS users.
Web design helps content get stuff done — on the web
A static web design is a fixed size. This has been the most used design method for more than a decade. The majority of sites you find on the web today will be static. When creating a static website your final html page should look identical to the visuals created by the designers. This is the quickest method for creating website but may not work for your entire audience.
Adaptive web sites will work on a variety of devices and are created using set break points that essentially return a different site at that size. These sites were generally created after the main site was already created in order to add mobile support. When creating visuals for an adaptive design the end product will align with the visuals at each break point.
Many adaptive sites use device sniffing so you may not see the mobile site unless you're on a mobile device.
The responsive design approach is aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing experience—easy reading and navigation across a wide range of devices (from mobile phones to desktop computer monitors). When starting new projects today this should be your goto method of design. When creating visuals for a responsive design these are used more as a guide and the final product may never exactly match the creative.
Small in class exercise. Break into groups of 3 and find the best and worst plumber websites on the internet. After 45 minutes we'll bring up the site and quickly explain why it's the best or worst that you found.
There are many different technolgies and programming languages in use in the web today. Most can be divided into one of 2 groups, front end and back end.
Anything that executes on the clients computer is consisdered a front end technology. These include:
Anything that executes on a server seperate from the client machine is consisdered a back end technology. These include:
Review any two websites you choose and write a review evaluating the site's UX based on Information Architecture, design, navigation and content.
Marking will be based on depth of analysis and how well your thoughts are communicated.
Email your review to me by 8:00am Friday, September 18, 2015 sheldon.ball@sait.ca
Read chapters 1 and 2 of"Information Architecture - Blueprints for the Web"
Check out A List Apart's Summer Reading Issue from last year. A List Apart is the best single place for great design, content and ux articles. Make sure you read, A Dao of Web Design by John Allsopp and Responsive Web Design by Ethan Marcotte.
Or, Medium