this course we will learn how to design Web pages, starting with HTML coding and building to more complex layouts, using cascading style sheets and intricate graphic designs. But it is not just a course in coding and graphic design. We will be thinking critically about the important issue of the day: designing aesthetically intricate, usable, accessible pages according to Web Standards.
We will be designing Web pages with the user, not the designer, in mind, which will force us to ask difficult questions: Who is our intended user? Our accidental user? How will they be coming to the page in similar ways? In different ways? Is there ever a way to create a Web page that can be usable for all people, regardless of physical or mental disability? What if the user is blind? What is the importance of Web page usability? What are the characteristics of a usable, accessible Web page? How can we be sure people using versions of Netscape, for example, that are four years old can still view the Web page? How does the fact that Web technology is constantly envolving inform the way we think about Web design?
These are difficult questions, ones we may never satisfactorily answer. But, everything we do in this course - read, write, design, reflect - will bring us closer to answering them, and the questions their answers inspire.
We will be completing three primary design projects, with many design and reading assignments to go with them. Much of the work will be done in groups. It will be important for us to remember that we all come to Web design from different backgrounds, and with different design skills and tastes. Designing is a very personal experience, and the group work we will be doing will ask each of us to place a great amount of trust in each other. Ultimately, this course - and the projects we will be doing - will challenge us to look at our ideas and worlds in new, complex, and, hopefully, challenging ways.