Preparing to Author a Web Site

Cynthia Beth Rubin

1. Practice making Two Linking pages without Images.

• Open up Dreamweaver, Netscape Composer, or another authoring software.

• Experiment with Typing in Text, and changing Sizes
  

• Experiment with Changing Background Colors and Text Colors
  
  
• Create Link between the two pages
  
  
• Open the pages in Netscape or Explorer to see them! Click between the pages.
  
  

Follow instructions to Practice On this Page (click here)

2. Outline the Content of the Site

• Web sites are easy to change; do not worry too much about planning your first site

• Make a list of categories that you would like to include.
  
  
• Make a list of images that you would like to include.
  
  

3. Begin to Brainstorm the Layout of the Site

Some web people prefer to Begin in Photoshop in Photoshop or ImageReady

• The Advantage of Beginning in Photoshop is that Special Headings and Images can be Transformed right in Photoshop.

• The Disadvantage of working too long in Photoshop is that it can be frustrating to translate the site.
  
  
• With a site taken from existing Print Media, it may be easier to move quickly into Web Construction software (Pagemill, Dreamweaver, Adobe Go-live).

4. Look at Examples of Simple Sites

Simplicity and Creativity can go a long way in making your first site effective!

Keep it clean -- you can learn fancy techniques later