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Contents
Authoring and Design for the WWW
Web Resources
Note If a resource has been moved from the exact location specified and
therefore cannot be found by your Web browser, look at the main site where it
was located: it may well have been moved within the site. For example, if the
precise address
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Internet/WWW/HTMLPrimer.html fails
to produce the document, then look at http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/ (the first part
of the same address) to try and locate it from there.
General
NCSA A Beginner's Guide to HTML
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Internet/WWW/HTMLPrimer.html
This is a general primer for HTML, covering Getting Started, HTML Documents,
Markup Tags, Character Formatting, Linking, Inline Images, Tables,
Fill-out Forms and Troubleshooting.
Web Development Information
http://www-slis.lib.indiana.edu/Internet/programmer-page.html
This site offers links to several other useful sites under the following broad
headings: HTML Starting points, Style Guides, Reference Guides and Technical
Information and Documentation; Server Management; PERL and CGI.
Web 66: Cookbook
http://web66.coled.umn.edu/Cookbook/contents.html
This site aims to offer a mix of information and linked resources so that
intending Web publishers can find everything they need to set up a site. It has
Macintosh and Windows specific areas.
Introduction to HTML
http://www.utoronto.ca/webdocs/HTMLdocs/NewHTML/htmlindex.html
This site is useful in separating out the non-standard extensions from the
general material. It includes Introduction to HTML, the HEAD and BODY
elements of an HTML Document, Stepping up to HTML 3, Netscape &
Microsoft Extensions, Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) and Interaction with
the Server (with examples).
Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/
The Maricopa Center provides a wide range of instructional materials for
various interactive technologies including HTML and Director.
ANU - Quality, Guidelines & Standards
http://coombs.anu.edu.au/SpecialProj/QLTY/QltyHome.html
This site includes sections on the design, production and maintenance of WWW
Resources, Gopher Information Facilities, FTP Information Facilities,
Databases, Mailing Lists, USENET systems, and information about Internet
Relay Chat (IRC). It also points to the scholarly papers collection next.
ANU Quality, Guidelines & Standards for Internet Resources: Scholarly Papers
http://coombs.anu.edu.au/SpecialProj/QLTY/QltyPapers.html#papers
This facility, provided by the Australian National University, keeps track of
scholarly papers dealing with standards, measures and management procedures
aimed at improving the quality of networked information facilities.
Style Guide for Online Hypertext
http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Provider/Style/
One of several useful documents and links provided by the World Wide Web
Consortium, see entry under Background below.
Legal and ethical
Legal issues on the WWW
http://info.mcc.ac.uk/CGU/SIMA/legal/title.html
A comprehensive survey of the legal issues relating to the development and use
of Word Wide Web technology at educational sites, by Andrew Charlesworth of
the Information Law and Technology Unit at the University of Hull. A SIMA
Project.
EFFweb - The Electronic Frontier Foundation
http://www2.eff.org/
The Electronic Frontier Foundation proclaims itself as a non-profit civil
liberties organization working in the public interest to protect privacy, free
expression, and access to public resources and information in new media
Products and technologies
BrowserWatch
http://browserwatch.iworld.com/
BrowserWatch is an essential site for information about browsers and plug-ins.
However, it does not express a view about which new technologies are
important and which are not, so it is important to look critically at the various
sites to which BrowserWatch points.
Microsoft Internet Explorer
http://www.microsoft.com/ie/
From ignoring the Web, Microsoft has moved rapidly to attempt to dominate it.
The company's thoughts on the integration of the Web and the personal
computer desktop are worth considering.
World Wide Web Software Tools
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/wwwtools/
This survey takes the form of a set of web pages covering tools on the
Macintosh, PC and Unix platforms, some on-line tools, and a report.
A SIMA Project.
Adobe Systems Incorporated
http://www.adobe.com/
A comprehensive site about Adobe products, future plans, publications etc.
Netscape
http://home.netscape.com/
A comprehensive site about Netscape products, intranets, development, plus a
wide range of instructional materials for Web publishers.
http://home.netscape.com/assist/net_sites/index.html
The Assistance section of the Netscape site has useful material on authoring
documents and developer tools.
http://home.netscape.com/comprod/at_work/white_paper/index.html
A series of white papers' on the use of the Web for intranets.
Technical detail
JPEG image compression
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/jpeg-faq/part1/faq.html
Includes twenty-one sections on the JPEG graphic file format, including how to
choose between JPEG and GIF, and advice on achieving the best form of JPEG
compression for a given purpose.
Non-Dithering Colors in Browsers
http://www.lynda.com/hex.html
The Browser Safe Palettes only contain 216 colors out of the possible 256,
because the remaining 40 colors vary on Macs and PCs. By eliminating the 40
variable colors, this palette is optimized for cross-platform use. The author
recommends the Browser Safe Palette for flat-colour illustrations rather than
for remapping colour photographs. There is a test page to prove the point.
Style
Yale C/AIM WWW Style Manual
http://info.med.yale.edu/caim/StyleManual_Top.HTML
A Web style manual by Patrick Lynch of the Yale Centre for Advanced
Instructional Media, covering Interface Design in Web systems, Page Design
and Optimizing Performance in Web Pages, with appendices on Web Authoring
Resources, Graphic Interface Design and Multimedia
Do's and Don'ts of Web style
http://millkern.com/do-dont.html
A light-hearted but useful summary.
The Alert Box: Current Issues in User Interface Design
http://www.sun.com/columns/alertbox.html
An intelligent monthly column by Jakob Nielsen, SunSoft Distinguished
Engineer which has included such topics as the Top Ten Mistakes of Web
Design, The Internet Desktop and In defense of Paper.
User Interface Design for Sun's WWW Site
http://www.sun.com/sun-on-net/uidesign/
An interesting case study by Jakob Nielsen of the interface design for Sun's own
Web site, including their fundamental design concepts, iterations of the home
page design and icon designs, and an account of the usability engineering'
methods used in the design process.
What is good hypertext writing?
http://kbs.cs.tu-berlin.de/~jutta/ht/writing.html
In Jutta Degener's view, The two pitfalls of writing hypertext copy are links and
emotions. Links are a new stylistic element that writers must learn to handle.
The emotional problem is harder: we must snap out of the host' or provider'
role, must get away from the excitement of guiding another person through the
text, and get back to just writing.' A useful contribution to the debate.
Background
As We May Think
http://www.isg.sfu.ca/~duchier/misc/vbush/
The complete text of Bush's 1945 article, which set out under the name Memex
many of the principles of what subsequently became hypertext.
Advisory Group on Computer Graphics (AGOCG) World Wide Web Server
http://www.agocg.ac.uk:8080/agocg/
The Advisory Group on Computer Graphics (AGOCG) is an initiative of the
Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Higher Education Funding
Councils and the Research Councils. AGOCG provides a single national focus
for computer graphics, visualization and multimedia within the UK higher
education community and is concerned with the handling of visual information
and its processing.
This handbook was developed with the support of AGOCG's Support Initiative
for Multimedia Applications.
ACM/SIGCHI Home Page
http://www.acm.org/sigchi/
SIGCHI is the special interest group for computer-human interaction of the
Association for Computing Machinery, New York. ACM SIGCHI brings
together people working on the design, evaluation, implementation, and study of
interactive computing systems for human use. ACM SIGCHI provides an
international, interdisciplinary forum for the exchange of ideas about the field
of human-computer interaction (HCI).'
SIGCHI publishes a monthly bulletin and a quarterly magazine called -
Interactions
ACM/SIGLINK Home Page
http://www.acm.org/siglink/
SIGLINK is the special interest group for hypertext of the Association for
Computing Machinery, New York. SIGLINK is a forum for the promotion,
dissemination, and exchange of ideas concerning hypertext research,
technologies, and applications among scientists, systems designers, and end-users.'
SIGLINK publishes a Newsletter. The ACM itself publishes monthly
Communications as well as journals and books.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/
The World Wide Web Consortium exists to realize the full potential of the Web.
W3C is an industry consortium which develops common standards for the
evolution of the Web by producing specifications and reference software.
Although W3C is funded by industrial members, its products are freely available
to all.'
The World-Wide Web Virtual Library
http://www.w3.org/vl/
The Virtual Library has sections on Communications and Telecommunications
(http://www.analysys.co.uk/commslib.htm) and on Electronic Journals
(http://www.edoc.com/ejournal/) amongst many others.
British HCI Group
http://kmi.open.ac.uk/~simonb/bcs-hci/hci-grp.html
The British Human-Computer Interaction Group was set up as a Specialist
Group of the British Computer Society in 1984, to provide an umbrella
organisation for all those working on the requirements analysis, design,
implementation and evaluation of technology for human use.'
KMi, Open University, UK
http://kmi.open.ac.uk/
The Knowledge Media Institute is a grouping of the OU's research into learning
applications of new technologies. We share a belief that our future depends on
understanding and sharing knowledge, and we therefore aim to define the future
of life-long learning by harnessing and shaping the technologies which
underpin it.'
Media-Lab, MIT
http://www.media.mit.edu/
MIT's Media Laboratory, founded in 1985, carries on advanced research into
a broad range of information technologies including digital television,
holographic imaging, computer music, computer vision, electronic publishing,
artificial intelligence, human/machine interface design, and education-related
technologies. Our charter is to invent and creatively exploit new media for
human well-being and individual satisfaction without regard to present-day
constraints.'
Contents
Graphics Multimedia
Virtual Environments Visualisation
Contents
