Web Page Design Chapter 2

Guidelines for Page Layout

1. Use white space effectively 2. Limit media elements 3. Keep it simple 4. Use an intuitive navigation structure 5. Apply a consistent theme

Background Color

A color that fills an entire web page, frame, table, cell or CSS layout block. In Photoshop, used to make gradient fills and to fill areas of an image that has been erased. The default background color is white.

Rule of thirds

A design principle that entails dividing a page into nine squares and then placing the page elements of most interest on the intersections of the grid lines.

Point of Contact

A place on a web page that provides users with a means of contacting the company.

CSS Layout Block

A section of a web page defined and formatted using a Cascading Style Sheet.

Code Inspector

A separate floating window that displays the current page in Code view.

Font-family (Dreamweaver)

A set of choices that specifies which fonts a browser should use to display the text on a web page.

Description

A short summary that resides in the head section of a web page and describes the website content.

Rollover

A special effect that changes the appearance of an object when the mouse moves over it.

Hexadecimal RGB Value

A value that represents the amount of red, green, and blue is a color and is based on the Base 16 number system.

JavaScript

A web-scripting code that interacts with HTML code to create dynamic content, such as rollovers or interactive forms on a web page.

Navigation Bar

An area on a web page that contains links to the main pages of a website. Also called a menu bar.

White Space

An area on a web page that is not filled with text or graphics (which is not necessarily white)

mailto: link

An e-mail address that is formatted as a link that opens the default mail program with a blank, addressed message.

Clean HTML code

Code that does what it is supposed to do without using unnecessary instructions, which take up memory.

History panel

Contains a record of each action performed during an editing session. Up to 1000 levels of Undo are available through the History panel ( 20 levels by default)

Screen real estate

Determines how much of your site will display on your browser.

Rendered

Drawn. ie. The way fonts are "rendered" on the screen differs because Windows and Apple computers use different technologies to render them. It is wise to stick to the standard fonts that work well in both systems. Test your pages using both operating systems.

Step

Each task performed in the History panel.

Meta Tags

HTML codes that reside in the head section of a web page and include information about the page such as keywords and descriptions.

Tags (HTML)

HTML tags are the parts of the code that specify the appearance for all page content when viewed in a browser.

Visited Links

Links that been previously clicked, or visited. The default color for visited links is purple.

Broken links

Links that cannot find the intended destination file for the link.

Unvisited Links

Links that have not been clicked by the user. The default color for unvisited links is blue.

Focus Group

Marketing tool that asks a group of people for feedback about a product, such as the impact of a television ad or the effectiveness of a website design.

1024 x 768

Most common screen size that designers use today because the majority of viewer use a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 or higher.

Hex Triplet

RGB triplet in hexadecimal format

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

Sets of formatting attributes used to format web pages to provide a consistent presentation for content across the site.

POWDER

The acronym for Protocol for Web Description Resources. This is an evaluation system for web pages developed with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) that provides summary information about a website.

Default Link Colors

The color the browser uses to display links if no other color is assigned. The default link color is blue.

Default Font Color

The color the browser uses to display text, links, and visited links if no other color is assigned.

Body

The part of a web page that appears in a browser window. It contains all of the page content that is visible to users, such as text, images, and links.

Head Content

The part of the web page that include the page title that appears in the title bar of the browser and meta tags, which are HTML codes that include information about the page, such as keywords and descriptions, and are not visible in the browser headings.

Slider

The small indicator on the left side of the History panel that you could drag to undo or redo an action.

Templates

Web pages that contain the basic layout for each page in the site, including the location of the company logo, banner, or navigation links.

Keywords

Words that relate to the content of a website and reside in the head section of a web page.

XML

XML stands for Extensible Markup Language, a type of file that is used to develop customized tags to store information.