Building an Effective Web Site

Introduction

• Web evolution
• The Internet and intranets
• Benefits to an organisation
• WWW Browsers
• Web server software

World Wide Web Basics

Designing powerful and intuitive web sites requires an understanding of the underlying technologies such as URL's, HTTP and MIME. Delegates will become confident in building their internal or external environments around these base technologies.

Basic HTML

HTML forms the basis for most web content. This chapter deals with creating basic pages, including creating links, lists and basic formatting.

Web Tools

Although many developers and content writers will use a basic tool such as Notepad, most developers will prefer to use a more advanced tool that can not only create content but also administer their web sites. We describe some of the more common tools and then allow the delegates to pick one of three ways to complete the exercises for the remainder of the course. They may choose to use MS Visual Studio Express, Dreamweaver CS or Notepad.

Images

There are many image formats although only a few are suitable for the web. Images are required for most sites and may be used for a multitude of purposes, including navigation. It is therefore very important to use the right type of image as well as understanding the HTML that will present the image in the most pleasing way.

Tables, Inline Frames and CSS

Tables have been the mainstay of page design for many major sites and can be used to create the look and feel of the site interface. Although there is less need for this now, it is still important to understand table structures and how to lay out data on the page. In addition, the delegates will learn how to use and configure Inline frames. There is also an introduction to CSS including embedded, inline and linked style sheets as well as using CSS classes.

Other Media Formats

Many types of media are now used as part of the construction of web pages and it is important to understand how the browser interacts with these files and how to enhance your web sites with multimedia components.

Web Site Design

Making your site easy to navigate and fast are of paramount importance as web users change their views of what is acceptable. Developers need to keep up with the methods for making their sites as efficient as possible. Small changes in say an image configuration may have a large impact on the time it will take a page to download and therefore on the users experience of your site.

Architecture

In some cases a web site will be the first, and possibly only, interface between the corporate environment and a possible client. Any mistakes, even minor ones, will give a bad impression to the user and those they communicate with. A simple broken link or link that goes to the wrong resource can do major damage to the corporate image.

Other Internet Services

Most people assume that the web and the internet are the same thing. There are other internet services, apart from the web, that may be needed as part of your development environment, including dealing with file transfers, creating email links and how some of the newer services may affect your decision making, such as peer to peer technologies.

Dynamic Content (Server)

You will need to consider the server if you want more than just a static page. The server sits between the user and other corporate systems and can be used to create dynamic content from those systems. This chapter deals with the communications and mechanisms for making these dynamic requests as well as how to construct the web page forms that will allow the user to send data and information that may be used or stored at the server.

Dynamic Content (Client)

Most browsers provide an extremely powerful environment to the user that can be used to affect and change pages without a round trip to the server. Scripting technologies can be used to not only give an enhanced interface to the user, i.e. drop down menus and rollover images, but also to deal with the background mechanisms such as validating form content before being sent to the server.

ASP.Net and PHP

We have picked two of the most popular technologies in order to demonstrate server side programming. The delegates will be able to understand how communications from the client and server can be interrogated and manipulated to provide dynamic pages. They will also use ASP.Net in order to create their own server side script.

Search Engine Optimisation

This chapter deals with incorporating search mechanisms in to your own environments as well as how your pages should be configured so that the search engines will be able to provide results that make sense to users. The different types of search engine are discussed and how, once your site has been created and tested, you will want to make sure that users become aware of it.

Database Integration

One of the many server mechanisms that most corporate sites will want to introduce is database integration. We talk about three tier architecture as well as middleware integration products and, as part of their exercises, the delegates will create an impressive dynamic ASP.Net page that will query back end databases for user specific data.

Dynamic HTML and CSS Positioning

There are some very impressive websites that use a combination of technologies in order to achieve their look and feel. Dynamic HTML is a term used to describe this combination of technologies which includes client side scripting and the document object model as well as CSS positioning. This now means that any part of a page can be manipulated by capturing events and allows for almost a desktop publishing type mechanism for the placement of content on the page.

Introduction to jQuery

Javascript is a notoriously tricky language often because of the different and non-standardised way that browsers process the scripting language. jQuery is a library built by a team that understand the way that browsers work, abstracting us from many of the cross and legacy browser issues. jQuery allows us to write javascript once and benefit many times.

eXtensible Mark-up Language (XML)

XML is one of the most important developments within the web technology arena. It provides a standard representation of data in a format that is easily disseminated across internet and intranet infrastructures. The chapter will describe XML as well as the surrounding technologies such as XSL transformations and Schemas that allow it to work. The delegates will not only create some of their own well-formed and validated XML but also a stylesheet transformation in order to view it in the browser.

HTML5 and CSS3 Overview

HTML5, like DHTML before it has become a buzz word and overall umbrella for a wide set of technologies. It is not XHTML2.0 in fact many of the hard rules of XHTML are gone in this softer HTML rule set. HTML5 is not due to be fully finished until the next decade. It will evolve and change in conjunction with developer needs and browser company support but as a 'living standard'. This means many core features of HTML5 are ready to go today in the latest crop of browser releases.

Security

Security is a very interesting aspect of web communications that is often misunderstood by users as well as developers. This chapter aims to demystify the most commonly used mechanisms and deals with the three main requirements of preventing eavesdropping, preventing modification and preventing impersonation. The technology behind the secure socket layer (HTTPS) is described and delegates will enable secure communications to part of their site using a digital certificate and SSL.

Content Delivery

New ways of delivering content to the user are arriving all the time. We have picked a few of these mechanisms which include SVG for data driven images at the client and Newsfeeds (RSS). RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is very popular with major sites that are providing some of their content in this format which enables reuse across many environments. In addition, delegates will create an AJAX implementation allowing to get new data for a page without rebuilding the whole page.

E-Commerce

Now that the delegates have experienced what is required in order to create effective web sites they can understand what may be needed to create E-commerce applications relating to the main categories of B2B and B2C. The implications in using this public trading infrastructure are many and must be considered carefully so that the likelihood of success can be increased.