LEARN CSS

I learned HTML back in the days of the dinosaurs (grey background, black text, blue links, tiny images with borders) and so my web pages suck. CSS is what all the cool kids are doing so I need to get with the times. The very idea of change in this area irks me (why?) but I feel like once I learn enough to produce something nice, I’ll end up liking it!

i am student. But i want to work web design. so how to learn web design & css for web design.

Well, I’ve been teaching myself CSS and HTML since I was 11…still a work in progress, though. Why must it be so confusing?

Whew. Wonder what it will be like to have weekends to myself again? This project gave me the opportunity to learned alot about CSS, Web design, browser conflicts, best practices and the TED Web site. I’ve never really thought I’d get further than building a Web site that was little more than a slightly updated table-designed site.

I really learned more about Dreamweaver than than I thought possible through the lynda.com Web site. The tutorials were all expertly created and thorough. Learning by doing made the difference. I enjoyed the articles, books and information I gathered for research, but the knowledge didn’t really move past my eyes until I started working along with the tutorials. Suddenly I felt less fearful about what I could create on my own.

Here’s a screenshot of a page I created as a vehicle to display some of my photography. And what I’ve learned will help me move forward in my career, as well.

What began as a desire to learn how to create CSS-driven Web pages, has morphed in a plan to re-do the entire Web site. The research on CSS lead me to several sites (and a couple of books) on good Web design practices. (And oh how I dislike our current Web site!) Can we incorporate some of the Web 2.0 components into our site? Can social networking be a part of it as well? Would students welcome – or even use – that content if it were available?

I agree that good design keeps “meaningful content” the focus of a successful Web site, more than just a bunch of nice images or background on each page of the site. It’s critical that better (and more sparingly used!) copy and images are used in an effective way. It’s clear that user’s tend to have a limited attention span – myself included – and we have far too much “stuff” on our homepage, making it harder for everyone (not just new visitors) to find the information they want and/or need.

Can I communicate this need to the decision-makers and content developers?

“Design the content, not the box it comes in: Use your pixels on things that communicate meaning. It used to be very common for web designers to make just templates – attractive or jazzy containers which would have ‘content’ added at a later time. This is a fundamentally wrong approach, because it doesn’t fulfill the designer’s mission – facilitating communication. If you find yourself decorating the package, rather than crafting real, meaningful content, stop & ask: ‘Are these pixels best used here?’ You want the visitor to focus on the navigation & content as that’s where the signposts are that point to the goals.”
-Ben Hunt, 2008, “Save the Pixels”

Whew! Designed a template for a new Website, with the page layout applications that I normally use (photoshop and indesign). But trying to recreate it with CSS is going to take me awhile. Lots of trial and error. And patience. Fortunately, knowing how to use Dreamweaver is a great help, especially if I build a dummy page using tables first! It’s been a few years since I’ve done this.

Reading all the entries I’ve collected in Evernotes. Lots of good information there. Not all of it is applicable for this project, but learning the terminology is extremely helpful. It’s always nice to feel just a little less ignorant!

Trying very hard to spend a few minutes everyday “social networking”. Started a facebook page (at my kid’s insistence) a few months ago, and am finally starting to use it! Put up some pics of my grandson, took a few quizes, and made actual comments. That’s a big growing step for me.

Narrowing down the Evernotes bibliography is tough. I didn’t always get all the information I needed from all the websites I accessed. And some of them don’t list authors. And I didn’t find all of them to have new information.

I don’t think I’m using this right! I am so socially networked-challenged. I can’t even find the previous entries I’ve made. Constant overwhelm seems to be the name of the game – and it’s not even dead week, yet. I’d planned on creating a Web page designed from CSS, but it’s more of a task trying to recreate the design I’ve been working on. It’s hard to think smaller. The books I’ve been reading have been interesting, but outdated. Web Bloopers was a good primer for understanding navigation, and thinking more consciously of the user’s perspective.

The best site I’ve found for purely learning how to use the software has been from Lynda.com. The videos, and ability to learn by doing, have made it so much easier to understand. From Dreamweaver training to writing CSS, I’ve made a lot of headway into understanding the code. Scratch that – not understanding per say, but at least recognizing the tags and structure of the sites. But the complexity of div tags to circumvent browser snafus is mind-boggling. Back to overwhelm again.

I want to learn CSS to help me get back into web design. I feel inept and useless when it comes to coding webpages, especially during the day and age that is “now”. As far back as I can remember, I’ve used standard HTML and good old Notepad to make every single website that I’ve ever played a part in producing. I feel embarrassed when I’m asked to work on a website for what could be a prospective client and I have to graciously decline, because all I can do is design fancy graphics and paste it up with outdated HTML. I got by pretty good in the past, but I’m a little overdue to catch up with the times.

I want learning CSS to be the beginning of furthering my coding skills, so I can say I’ve done more than HTML for 12 years, as tremendously awesome as that might sound (to cavemen).

It’s so easy to lose track of time on this project. While reading one article, I follow links to other interesting bits of information. It isn’t long before I’ve lost track of which windows and tabs I can keep, and which ones I can close. Also trying to carefully label the information I’m placing into Evernotes.

What’s hardest to control is my lack of discipline. While searching for more information on browser platforms, somehow I ended up on a pbs Website about ethics in photojournalism and image manipulation, which gave me the impetus for another class project for CSE610.

While it’s definitely not time lost, it’s hard to balance the time I have available for the research with my full time job.

I want to learn more about the coding and processes behind the creation of web sites.