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An informal guide to building a web pageApr 10 '01 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line The web is full of boring poorly designed pages. I hope this will help you to use your creativity to create a decent web page.
So you’re out browsing the web one day when you come up with a totally world-altering idea. You have decided to build your own web page. Well, that is where this essay comes into play. I want to help explain the process of coming up with and publishing a web page. I tried to write this essay with non-technical people in mind, so it shouldn’t be too hard to understand. Building a web page or site can be a success or a failure based on how well you follow these steps. 1.) Conceptualization-Think about what you want your page to accomplish and design your page accordingly. 2.) Structure - If you plan on building a full-fledged site, break your project down into manageable pieces. 3.) Type your code - Usually HTML is used to accomplish this task. Neatness is key in writing clean code. 4.) Get it out there - most of us will never own web servers, so there are a number of companies known as web hosting companies out there. Web hosting companies give you space to put your page up. 5.) Maintenance - This is one of the most neglected parts of web pages. It is important to maintain a page. On to the good stuff… Conceptualization Every great thing begins with a thought. Your web page is no different. Your web page, before it is a web page, needs to be a thought. Many of you who are reading this are thinking, " Gee, How many times have I need that one?" Well, I can truthfully say that conceptualization is so much more than coming up with an idea. Conceptualization involves creating a mental image, an idea, and a plan. So when you begin conceptualizing your web site, you will need to see the page in your head or pull out the old crayons and draw your page (drawing is my favorite method!). When constructing a page, I like to take things one step further. I like to write out what I plan to accomplish by building this page. My personal opinion is that if you have tried extremely hard to come up with goals for building your web page and cannot think of anything, you might want to reconsider even trying to build a page. Anyways, you also need to consider the impression you want to present when someone views your page. OK, let's do a quick review. Think about the impression you want to convey, write out what you plan to accomplish, and draw (or sketch) what you want your page to look like. These steps of conception will not only ensure WYSIWIG (What You See Is What You Get), but they make sure you have documentation of your idea (just in case you forget.) Structure All right, so you have conceptualized. You have all these beautiful ideas and cool thoughts for your web page floating around in your head. Now, it's time to pull all of your ideas together into a plan for action. By the time you are finished structuring, you should have a basic plan of action for writing you code. Organizing your thoughts and ideas is a must before writing your code. The effects of not organizing your ideas can lead to total failure (trust me, I know). I once had an idea for a whizbang web site. I had thought of everything, and I proceeded directly to typing my code. Not even 30 minutes into my task, I was lost, mixing up sections in my page, and I was rapidly forgetting my ideas. Well anyway, back to structuring. Take your drawing, sketches, and writing and modify them. Write the steps you want to take on you drawings and draw pictures on your writing. This step causes your images and words to mesh into one another. Every picture should have words and vice versa. Now that you have your ideas taken care of, it's time to organize them. Gather all of your ideas on paper, and organize them according in some kind of order. Since this is your web page, you can choose whatever order suits your needs. Some people like group the ideas based on how big they are, while others prefer to group using other ways. Whatever method you do choose, it will be sure to make writing your code a lot easier. Writing you code The key to writing good HTML is neatness. Unreadable code produces unpredictable results, at best. The way to keep HTML clean is by spacing properly. Usually, I like to go to a new line after every tag(except those that change font size,etc).Also, keep in mind that once you build your site, you will probably want to come back and modify what you have done. Imagine your dismay to find that you couldn't make sense of your unreadable code. Imagine all the trouble you would go through, and the time you would waste trying to make sense of it all. That's why neatness is paramount. Now that you have written your HTML, just what do you with the finished product? Getting your page out there Like I mentioned at the beginning of this essay, the majority of people will never own a web server. The advent of web hosting companies is the answer to not owning a server. Some web hosting companies offer free service, but most cost anywhere from a few dollars to 100+ dollars per month. Think of web hosting as renting an apartment, while owning a server is like owning a home. Think of your information as furniture. If you had only a couple of pieces of furniture, which option would you chose? Even if you plan on having a huge web site someday, it wouldn't hurt to try it on a web host first. Well, now that I've got the apartment analogy out the way, I bet some of you are wondering just how do I get started. First things first, you will need to find a web host. The three key things to consider when trying to find a web host are price, features, and customer service. Just as prices can range from a few dollars to 100+ dollars a month, there is a large range of features. The smallest set of features usually is about 15mb worth of storage for your page and pictures. In order to pick a good set of features, you need to cater to your growth. If you plan on adding lots of pages and pictures, and are thinking using Perl or something similar, then you would probably want to get a better package. Customer service is probably the most important factors in choosing a web host. For example, my high school's web host, OneNet, isn't cool at all. I had just learned Perl/CGI and wanted to implement my knowledge. I sent a simple email asking if they had CGI capability. What I received back was one of those automatic responses generated to appease the situation. It took three weeks for OneNet to provide with a simple yes or no answer. During that time period, I obtained OneNet's phone number where I was told to talk a particular guy. The only problem was that he was never in. I called at 9 AM, 11 AM, 2 PM, and 5 PM. As you can see, I was really glad that those guys were working for my high school and not me. Maintenance Ah…Maintenance. By far the most neglected aspect of the web page. Consider a web page to be a newspaper, magazine, or TV show. It is being seen by hundreds of thousands of people every day. Now, imagine that this program never changed. Think of how many angry beavers there would be. That's why you need to maintain your page. You don't want any angry beavers. Seriously though, maintaining your web page shows that you care about what's going on. It also distinguishes you from the countless people who post a page and leave. Well, since you know the importance of maintaining a page, here are some methods to maintain your page. You could post a daily joke or quote. You could establish an email communication account so you can keep up with your viewers' comments and suggestions. If you take this route, be sure to restate their question or comment in your return email. This let's them know that there is a real person answering their email and not some computer. Well that's about all I have to say… I hope this essay was helpful to you. If you see any misinformation or have suggestions for how I can make this better, feel free to leave a comment. I will try to make changes as soon as possible. On a side note, ptiemann has a web site that you can use to notify you of new reviews. The http address is www.preview.org/cgi-bin/notify.pl. It's extremely easy to use and I like it a lot. I would recommend any Epinions member who hasn't tried it to give a shot.  |
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