Completed!

I truly feel a sense of accomplishment after this project! This project opened a lot of doors for me in how to organize a large Web project and taught me new techniques in building Web pages with CSS. I am probably most excited that I learned how to create QuickTime movies! This is something that I will certainly explore more...there is so much I could do. Newport was definitely a fun topic for me to learn more about....there is so much information. One of my big challenges was keeping it simple and manageable.

CSS Positioning Problems

I am playing around with my CSS for my project and cannot get the three columns to act the way I'd like them to. I have the middle column stretching and the two side colums are a fixed width but I can't get the height of the side columns to stretch to the same height as the middle column. Any advice?

Home: http://homepages.nyu.edu/~smm438/newport_index.htm

CSS: http://homepages.nyu.edu/~smm438/newport.css

Storyboarding

Not sure if anyone else had this experience, but I really found the storyboarding helpful in putting my site together. It did a good job of keeping me organized. I kept a table for each page of my site in Microsoft Word and would add to it as I came up with more content, images, links, etc. Then when I actually built the pages it was pretty easy to pull the content since most of it was in my storyboard. I'm definitely still tweaking it, but I think this is a method I would use again!

Lynch and Horton

I'm back to reviewing Lynch and Horton's Web Style Guide while working on my final project. Earlier in the semester I had printed out various chapters of this site to review. Now that I'm back to the site and reviewing it online, I am amazed at how much more effective I find it as a Web site rather than a printed document. I am really surprised by this discovery of mine since I usually have a hard time reading too much content online. However, I love how they use the table of contents on the right that expands when selected. I am finding it useful to explore different topics in different chapters by just clicking around. This is something I couldn't do while reviewing the printed chapters. I hadn't realized I was missing out!

Designing in CSS

This class has opened me up to designing in CSS. All previous HTML and CSS I've done has linked to external or internal style sheets but the layouts have all been based on tables. Now I realize how wrong that is (or old-fashioned) and I am quite thankful this class has brought me more up to speed on things. It is not an easy transition though! I am very used to using HTML a certain way and designing my final project is a great exercise in getting me to do things differently. I have found the sites listed in our class "Interesting Links" very useful. Especially Zeldman, Little Boxes and Glish!

Recipe for a succesful web site

I really like the "recipe" content of Nathan Shedroff's site Recipe for a Successful Website. I can't help but comment on the choice of background color and background images though. Green with white line images of food are not what I'd consider a successful design for being easy to read with black text on top of it. Then on top of that background there are even black line art images. I guess I just find it funny based on what the site advocating. I definitely like how there is an option to download a PDF version and I did that. Makes it much easier to read! One thing the PDF lacks is the use of hyperlinks to examples. I like how the site makes use of those, where the PDF does not.

DRAFT PROSPECTUS

Final Project Overview

Learning objectives for the site
The site is going to give an overview of Newport, Rhode Island both as a tourist destination and a town with great history. There will be an interactive learning aspect on the site, possibly in the form of an online quiz. There will also be a form users can fill out for more information on Newport.

The audience
The audience is 25 - 40 years old. They are interested in coming to Newport for a weekend getaway, but also interested in learning some history about the destination.

Audience background knowledge of Newport
The audience has some basic knowledge on Newport, enough to have sparked interest in a weekend getaway there. Most come within driving distance so would have some basic knowledge, but not a deep understanding.

Audience level of their technological proficiency
The audience has moderate experience with technology. They can use a computer to surf the Web but are not power users.

Design Principles
This site will follow principles of Don Norman, R. Mayer and others TBD.

Class and ID Question

I'd still like some clarification with CSS classes and IDs. Do IDs get used in style sheets the same way as classes or are they for one document only since they are to be used once?