Talk:Web design

Semi-protect due to spam?

The only edit I see in the past 50 that would have been prevented if the article had been semi-protected is this addition of Opera to a list of example web browsers. --Ronz (talk) 20:03, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Section "Changes and updates" is heavily biased

While my additions have been removed for not meeting the standards the original, heavily biased section is still there. The section "Changes and updates" is rant in favor of the "facebook way" of dealing with user complaints about UI changes - by simply ignoring them. The section cites only one source, which is published on the slate magazine's web site, but is a commentary of the author expressing his personal views.

While it is true that facebook is a one of the "Major websites", there is at least one other major website (google) employing a different approach instead of implementing disruptive changes and then "simply to wait". While being re-desigend recently the google start page still has the same basic layout it had years before. Another example of user friendly implementation of new features (admittedly not from the web design area) is the UI of the Pine e-mail client from the University of Washington, which has been one of the major e-mail clients for many years. New features in Pine were added disabled by default so that an update almost never changed the functionality unless you went to the settings page and explicitely changed the configuration. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BerlinSight (talk • contribs) 16:01, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Can't we do better than this?

This article sucks! The edit on June 21 was heavy handed. It would have been better to challenged controversial content piece by piece. That would have been more constructive than destructive. But I guess the latter is easier than the former. We can't all be police men.

There are far more people willing to contribute to wikipedia from experience than are willing to find sources to back what they know to be true from experience. There has to be a better way to encourage people to find sources than to just remove unsourced material. Cutting edge technology and professional trends don't usually wait for someone to state the obvious in print before evolving. I'd rather see a fairly current and thorough article that lacks sources than a well-sourced, but outdated article that covers a microscopic portion of the subject. Oicumayberight (talk) 23:57, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

PROMO?

The way this reads now, a young reader would be lead to believe that all there is to web design is coding, and all there is to coding is knowing which language to use. This reeks of promoting someone's preferred way of doing business. If it can't be a thorough article, it shouldn't be about something as specific as one or two markup languages. One could learn more from a disambiguation page. Oicumayberight (talk) 00:42, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Oicumayberight, and have more or less said this below, the article says nothing about layout or color. I would like to see a bit about the so called "rules" of web design such as the myth of "the fold" e.t.c. Inputdata (talk) 20:47, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Oicumayberight, i've tried to correct the Best Practices section and will be working on this further Maclein (talk) 13:16, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Redirects

So, it seems that "Web Programming" redirects (as you might expect) to "Web Development", but "Web Programmer" redirects to this page, "Web Design". What is the rationale for that? Toddcs (talk) 08:48, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

I have fixed that and a few others similar. There are some other broken redirects to this page: Liquid layout and Fluid layout. This topic is no longer discussed on this page and I can't find it discussed in any depth elsewhere on WP. --Kvng (talk) 15:14, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

HTML and CSS focus

Why are we focusing on just HTML and CSS? This article is meant to be about web design not the programming code used to make websites. If we are to include it then why are we only using HTML and CSS and not Javascript or PHP or any others? No one seams to have any real idea about what this article is about. Inputdata (talk) 20:42, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

First design firm?

I don't think the article would be complete without at least citing the first web-designer. According to the department of Energy, who at one time had authority over domain names, it was this guy, Phil Fischer.

http://historyofdomainnames.com/content/phil-fischer-obtains-12303-one-worded-dictionary-domain-names-defense-information-systems-fr http://historyofdomainnames.com/content/phil-fischer-northwest-online

I also think he should be credited with domaining, and domain name speculation.

Tim Northwest Magazine.

P.S. I am doing a story on this guy and I was surprised not to see him here. (matter of fact, I am really surprised not to see The Xbox Boys here too. 16 million downloads and no wiki page???? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Timothy Reynolds (talk • contribs) 05:04, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

A rather dodgy WHOIS on that domain name (depertmentofenergy.org) along with a few other critical timeline errors would indicate that it is not a genuine US government site. The US government tends to use .gov for its sites. Jmccormac (talk) 14:12, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Improving this page.

Hi, a group of us from the University of Hull are going to be trying to help get this page and possibly other related pages in order. We are taking part in a module called Psychology of Internet behaviour and as part of the assessment we have been tasked with grouping up and helping Wikipedia. If you have any suggestions, like or dislike anything we do then please let us know one of our key aims is to engage with and work alongside the community. Thanks WBClarkson (talk) 21:42, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi guys, good to have you along.

This is a good choice of an article to work on. It's clearly important, current and deserves a good article, but the current offering is pretty grim.

If you're unfamiliar with WP (and its obsession with inscrutable capitalised acronyms), then be warned to expect a bumpy ride. The technology of editing here isn't too bad, but the culture and politics is downright weird. If I can assist at all, please shout.

For starting out on this article, I'd suggest that you try some of these:

• Read some good articles. Find some stuff that you think is well done, badly done, and think about what's making that difference.
• Read some Good Articles at WP:GA. This is a formal quality standard. See what WP "officially" thinks makes a good article (or more realistically, what missing sections will stop it being one).
• Briefly read some WP editing background, like WP:MOS (Manual of Style) and stuff on copyright.
• Start your editing work by "clean slating" a new article. Write an essay plan for it. Think of good authoritative references to use, then re-read them beforehand. Work out what a good, readable, article on web design will look it.
• Start editing of a sandbox draft in a shared userspace, or even on a home MediaWiki server (unis should look at offering this - it's easy). Try user:WBClarkson/drafts/Web design
• For an article like this, you might write the new draft first, then work the old article into the new, structured draft, rather than trying to add a new draft piecemeal to an existing article. It can be difficult to merge the two and still keep a good editorial structure, but it's important to hang onto that.
• Section structure and headings can make a good initial skeleton from the outset, because they look like an outline. Even if you delete some of those headings afterwards as too detailed.
• Write an intro section. Do (or re-do) this afterwards.
• Don't sweat the syntax and WP:MOS. You can fix that stuff afterwards, or if you want something sorted out with tables, references or images, then just ask.
• How to screw up:

• Read WP:IEP for the grim story of how a university project can go badly wrong. Anything IEP did, you should probably do it differently.
• Copyright violations (images or text chunks). You'll get slapped for that.
• Writing articles by Googling for text matches on the title, then pasting in random sections that look vaguely related.
• Not understanding the topic before you write about the topic.
• Writing paragraphs, rather than an article with an overall structure. This is one of the weakest parts of the wiki-editing model, especially for broad-scope articles with a wide interest range. Everyone gets to paste their favourite little sentence in, but the end result is an unstructured mush.

Good luck with it. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:54, 3 March 2012 (UTC) (Laser Physics, Hull, a million years ago)

Thanks Andy. That will help us a lot when we add on to this page. Nicola Witbooi (talk) 14:32, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Nicola and others. I'd be interested in some collaboration if any help is needed on this topic? # Henry Brown 13:30, 6 March 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Henryz14 (talk • contribs)

Yeah cheers Andy, some very good advised and much appreciated.

Hi Henry, you are welcome to help if you wish.

At the moment we are working through a structure I’ll get Teri to post it later. The interesting thing I think about web design is that there are a lot of subjects that I feel should be mentioned but because of their importance have their own page already, I’m sure you get this for all topics but web design does seem to be an umbrella for lots of other things. Maybe that’s why it hasn’t reached a finished state in the past. As we progress with this we will be keeping the work in our sandboxes, so anyone interested please feel free to drop by and get involved. WBClarkson (talk) 18:26, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I think the majority of the article is biased or outdated at the moment. It just mimics the main articles of different topics, such as XHTML and content management systems. XHTML is of course part of web design, but why refer to XHTML and not HTML5? You're 100% correct when you say the term 'web design' is an umbrella for different things. It also talks about 'best practice' but this will become outdated often. Just a suggestion, what if the article was to look at origins of 'web design', where it came from and some of the main transitions. It can still link to other relevant subject, such as responsive design, html5 etc, but I don't think the term 'web design' should be specifically tied to technologies as this changes every day. # Henry Brown 22:46, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi everyone here’s the layout of what we decided for the page:

Introduction, History, Skills, Tools, Occupations.

If you could just post on here which sections you will be doing. I have chosen the history section. Teri Bateson (talk) 10:00, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

An example of how these sections could be used well is the wiki page for Graphic Design, both subjects cover a wide range of styles, technologies and uses, the graphics pages handles this very well, unlike on here.

I agree Henry, we'll try and make the History cover the important changes and the origins linking to the relevant technologies and practices as it goes. Teri and Nic will be starting on this. WBClarkson (talk) 01:22, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Yea I think the history should be a major part of the Web design page. Some sections under the history could be important Web designers and their contributions and a timeline and perhaps the main generations of web design. Anyone got some suggestions of other categories that could be put under the history? Nicola Witbooi (talk) 09:41, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Check out this website for dates on key changes about technologies, browser and code. WBClarkson (talk) 09:49, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks wayne thats great Teri Bateson (talk) 09:50, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

I have added a new introduction to my sandbox, please look over and suggest changes before I added to the real page later tonight. Unfortunately I had to completely rewrite it so it would work I don't like to do that as i'm not a deletionist. WBClarkson (talk) 19:30, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I have now edited the intro, if anyone has any suggestions or thinks it should be changed please let me know. WBClarkson (talk) 23:21, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi, I am now working on the history of web design dating from 2000 till the present. Does anyone have suggestions of particular subject areas I should touch upon while looking at this time period? Nicola Witbooi (talk) 14:17, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Added some ideas for you on my talk page. # Henry Brown 16:23, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

I have now put a draft onto Wayne Clarkson talk page. If anyone would like to give feedback that would be great Nicola Witbooi (talk) 19:19, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Hey, i have put a draft version of the early history in my sandbox, if anyone would like to have a look and give any pointers as to any changes or other information that needs to be added that would be great. Teri Bateson (talk) 13:17, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

I'll have a look, you need to edit the link to you sandbox so people can see it. WBClarkson (talk) 21:33, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

I have added section 'tools and technologies' to be looked over. Still needs links and references adding. WBClarkson (talk) 21:33, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

hi everyone i have now added my history section to the web design page, please let me no of any changes that need to be made. i am aware that links and references still need to be added nut wanted to get it up so i could receive feedback. Thanks Teri Bateson (talk) 09:41, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

These new changes are pretty good. Links and refs are an improvement, but the basic editorial core seems accurate and readable. 8-)

The article does now need a little re-balancing to improve cover of the next few bits. In particular, this is still web design, not history of web design, so the majority ought to be on the current practices. For the history section, I'd also like to see a bit more about CSS. CSS appeared with the V4 browsers c. 1997, but it took around 10 years before it was competently used by web designers. This was due to a number of factors: poor early browser implementations, poor understanding by designers (not helped by almost every teaching resource being wrong) and also an over-reliance on HTML authoring tools like Dreamweaver that still generated fixed-page-width layouts with absolute positioning, rather than semantic HTML and a CSS-based fluid layout.

This is also not just one article on web design in isolation: it's one of a suite on all the disciplines involved (some of which may not be written yet). They need to work as a set, which might include editing work to those other articles too. Topics like: web design, web developer, front-end web coders, back-end web coders, usability experts, SEO charlatans, etc.

It's also worth noting that a web designer primarily produces web designs, not sites. A coder then takes this design and implements it. In small projects or teams these are the same person, but it's still two distinct roles. There's scope for explaining what a "web design" looks like at this intermediate step: is it a wireframe or is it one of those awful old Photoshop layouts that couldn't work other than to make a bad website, with rigid definition of pointless pixel-positioning, but no indication of how dynamic page flow ought to work.

Good work so far though Andy Dingley (talk) 10:57, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Andy, thanks for your comments they are really helpful. Im just in the middle of adding the references to the history part. One of the other group members is doing the more current 'history' as to what is happening now, so hopefully this will re balance the article. We did feel that there did need to be some history part to it so that you are able to see the progression of web design. Yes i can look into CSS more and write about what you have highlighted. Is there any sites or books you could recommend that talk about this? Thanks again for your comments :) Teri Bateson (talk) 12:10, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Usenet was always (bizarrely) one of the best resources for really serious and accurate discussion of HTML & CSS. You can still get there through Google Groups and the newsgroups news:comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html and news:comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets Jukka Korpela's website is a good resource. For HTML/CSS teaching, the only good books were the Head First HTML series, Haakon Lie's Cascading Style Sheets book (esp. the early editions) and Elizabeth Castro's books. Of the vast number of HTML teaching sites out there, just about the only one that wasn't clearly broken was HTMLDog. W3Schools was, of course, infamously bad.

I think a really important topic to cover (maybe in a separate article) would be the idea of a fluid layout design. I notice that you've just removed some redlinks to table-based design and also spacer .gifs. Although these are both bad techniques that were abandoned some time back, they're good subjects for article coverage. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:18, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks andy thats great i will check them out. Yeah well id put them in for links to other wiki pages but assumed that the had gone red as there was no page for them?? i can add them back in if you think that would be better? Cheers Teri Bateson (talk) 12:42, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Please see WP:REDLINK. Redlinks aren't a bad thing, even if they can make an article look untidy. They indicate notable topics that the encyclopedia should cover when possible. Readers see that there's a topic there (even if not yet covered) and authors see that there's a gap needing to be filled.

When creating a redlink, it's good practice to nav to that new page link and search for alternate page names. The page might already be there, just not under the name you expected. Sometimes you re-phrase the name, other times you might create a redirect. You can also look at the "What links here" (LHS sidebar) list. If there are already many inbound links, that's probably a good name for a redlink, and we ought to try to fill it soonish.

If you object aesthetically to redlinks, then maybe create a short stub (no more than half-hour's work) to fill in the gap. If you set out to write a stub (and no more than this) on a well-defined concept, you can usually get the job done very quickly without getting bogged down in there. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:07, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Andy, Okay i will give WP:REDLINK a read over and sort them out. Teri Bateson (talk) 13:37, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Tezza, i'd change the section name about browser wars, as many view it as the end of the first browser war but the end of browser wars. WBClarkson (talk) 12:14, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

That was fast work Andy making the Spacer GIF page. Well Done. WBClarkson (talk) 19:41, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Good Practices within Web Design

Hey Chris, I just saw your post on web design. I think perhaps it could benefit from another read through as there are some grammatical mistakes which need to be corrected. If you need any help with that just let us know Nicola Witbooi (talk) 19:58, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I'd add that it's worth putting into a sandbox first to be looked over.

I'd also suggest changing the name to skills or techniques, as "good practices" is very opinionated WBClarkson (talk) 20:38, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Hey Nicola, yh double message new version on ur talk page however page layout is shocking so go to my sandbox if ud like to correct anything further. Cnurney9 (talk) 15:03, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Self Promotion

References

Stone, John. "20 Do’s and Don’ts of Effective Web Typography".

I think this may be self promotion? Liam Dufty

I don't believe it's overly promotional and it's broadly good advice. However he then blew it with this: body { font-size: 13px; }, so I vote we take off and nuke it from orbit - it's the only way to be sure. Not to mention putting any sort of units on line-height: line-height: 18px; Andy Dingley (talk) 00:49, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Recent history

The history section seems to stop at 2000 which is odd becasue there has been a lot of work and changes in the landscape in the last 12 years, for example the way in which people are now accessing the web (via mobile or TV e.t.c) has changed the way people design sites. I understand we are not going into how things are done but I still think stopping at 2000 is very odd.