1. Web Design School Website Best Practices A Balance Between Professionalism and Creativity Professiona l

2. Who Is Your Audience? Students Parents Teachers Administrators Community Members

3. What Is Your Web page Purpose To provide information to the audience that is easy to find, timely, and relevant. Customize and target your content to your users.

4. Principles of Design Essential Question: What are some principles that I need to consider when creating my teacher web page in order to balance my creativity with making the page look professional?

5. Layout and Navigation Should have design consistency Colors Navigation - simple, easy-to-use, consistent Design layout - overall look consistent (fixed width, centered, etc.)

6. Maintain Consistent Formats “Showcasing” dozens of different fonts, graphics and designs hinders performance and violates design standards.

7. Maintain Smooth Gliding Formats When thinking of design consistency: You do not want random variation but a site that looks smooth and put together. You will need to be careful especially if others will have pages to design on your site.

8. What Do Parents Want To Know Ideas for Home Page  Upcoming Events  Contact Information  About the teacher Ideas for other pages  Educational resources  Electronic textbook  Projects and due dates  Instructional lessons (video, powerpoint, etc)  Copy of worksheet/ handouts  PT Conference Forms  Showcase of student’s work

9. First Page Content Should Include:  Easy-to-understand navigation  Site search  Latest news, important information, upcoming events  Contact information - Provided in header  Should:  Load quickly  Be contained in the first window if possible

10. Less Is More Take a minimalist approach Apply few graphics except where they contribute meaning Do not waste bandwidth and visitor time loading pages

11. Distinguish between menu pages and data pages Menu pages should help visitors move quickly to what they need. Should be logically constructed with well ordered lists of choices where information is provided.

12. Be Well-Organized  Balance the number of hyperlinks with page length to minimize scrolling and display time.  Sun Microsystems did an extensive usability study and found that users do not want to scroll.  Where possible, size your pages important content to fit into the typical user’s screen. (465 pixels wide by 340 pixels high for a 15 inch monitor)

13. Organize Documents Use thoughtful file-naming conventions for ease of linking. When using the document manager, cluster all related files in groups. May be best to hide document manager in the navigation bar and just link. Document Manager

14. Provide Valuable, Timely Information  Update regularly  Periodically check links

15. Follow Policy Pictures Forms on a case-by-case basis No identifying information with pictures Student Work Remember copyright issues-any original work is automatically copyrighted, even if the author or artist is a 5-year-old kindergarten student. Parents must consent to displaying their child's copyrighted work. Provide a disclaimer to protect original student work

16. Things to Avoid  Anything that does not contribute directly to the understanding of the site or does not impart information  Think about music, whistles, and beeps They play unreliably across browsers and platforms They do not really impart information  A busy/inconsistent format

17. Professionalism vs. Creativity Remember that your web page should look professional but can be more creative

18. Let’s Review

19. Could This Website Use A Makeover?

20. Watch For Broken Links

21. Organize And Make Your Site Easy to Read

22. Watch The Backgrounds

23. Design Principles Should Be An International Language

24. Sources School Websites Best Practices, Zumu Software, 1/16/08, Mike Provenzano “Net Profit in a Post Modem World”, Jamie McKenzie, http://www.fromnowon.org, 1/16/08 http://www.fromnowon.org http://www.angelfire.com/super/badwe bs/links.htmhttp://www.angelfire.com/super/badwe bs/links.htm, 1/17/08 Creativity