Standards’ task 1:
The 5 Most important “rules” for writing online.
- Layout – Ensure your layout is clear and easy to scan
- Be Succinct, and use Keywords to retain your audience
- Headings – make effective use of headings so users can easily find what they are looking for
- Usability – Ensure that you are using a format that will attract the right audience.
- Interactivity – Make sure your web page is usable, but stop short of overcrowding it with too many flashy features.
Most standards relate back to the the fact the people “Scan” a web page rather than reading it fully. People do not read a web page as easily or comprehensively as they would a paper document so this consideration needs to be at the forefront of an online writer or designers mind.
Standards’ task 2:
Test your web page according to the W3C standards by going to their validator page. If your page does not conform (it probably won’t!) record in your learning log why you think this is: try and identify the particular tags or code that are causing trouble. Are the problems related mostly to display, usability, or accessibility?
I tested my index.html page and the first attempt had 27 errors. Interesting. I think that the issue was mainly one of keeping the tags in correct format.
I spent quite a lot of time tinkering with my code, retesting and at one point got it down to 6 errors, only to then revert back up to 27 again with the next change. Parking it for a moment in order to take a much needed breather from HTML code, I decided to indulge myself with a little tangent..I’d been wondering whether or not it is typical for pages to conform tightly to standard or whether some error was the ‘norm’ (I know it probably sounds like I was trying to find an excuse to leave mine with error – but that’s not true I promise). So for research I tested a couple of ‘real’ sites, in fact I deliberately used good quality sites for this little experiment – those from the awards list found here
The result was all had errors, some less than 5, others had as many as mine. So what does this mean?
I’ll have to learn a lot more about html before I can comment in an informed way about standards or even build clean error free sites, however it does seem that many sites work well on the web even though coding isn’t perfect. Whilst not best practice however is probably a very common problem as more and more people create web pages using software to circumnavigate learning html.
As for me….I am going to continue to edit my index.html page until it is HMTL Valid…. update coming
Legal Issues:
After reading the material on the copyright website I then looked up the curtain home page and went to the A-Z index. I followed the links to Curtain Policies and Procedures and found Logo Use Procedures.
In summary – the Curtain logo is copyrighted and therefore unauthorised use is not allowed.
On my website I’m certain I would not break any copyright laws. Quite deliberately the images I have used were my own, simply because at the time I was not fully accross the legal side of things and wished to avoid it entirely. I can see though that this would be impractical for any web creator wanting to be impactful, so a god knowledge of legal issues (and the ability to navigate them succesfully) is essential for any online publisher.
