Information Scotland

The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland

February 2005 Volume 3 (1)

Endpiece

Web of knowledge

Colin Will passes on some simple lessons for creating websites.

"Oh, what a tangled web we weave,” especially when we don't know the first thing about web design or webmastering. It all looks so easy: import some text, insert some pictures, and build a beautiful page. And then, ...er, well, maybe the library's got a good book on what to do next? Doubtless it has, but do you know enough to look for the right answers in it? Are you really in touch with your inner ignorance? Are you sure that The Total Thicky's Book of Everything Webby is anything more than a collection of ill-chosen platitudes enlivened by some more or less amusing cartoons? What follows is not a manual, then, but some tips and design suggestions.

Your ISP has given you FREE webspace, and your thrifty Scottish nature suggests that you don't want it to go to waste. What will you need to make use of it? You've probably already got it on your system, particularly if you follow the Golden Rule of website design - Keep It Simple! Fancy stuff annoys many people, and some don't have the plugins needed to make things work. So I'm not going to discuss animations, Flash effects or pop-ups. For the basics you will need authoring software, basic image editing tools, and some method of transferring your files to and from the remote host. The last one is something most ISPs include with their software. If not, you can pick up free file transfer software (FTP) easily. ISPs may also include authoring software: a means of transforming ordinary text into the HTML text that web browsers such as Microsoft's Internet Explorer use to display text on screen. You can also get free authoring software on the CDs that come with computer magazines.

Planning. The next piece of advice is to sit down with pencil and paper, away from your computer screen, and write down the reasons why you want to create a website, and who your target audience is. An hour spent this way is worth at least a day struggling to fix a site that doesn't achieve its aims.

Structure. Nobody likes sites that open with a huge and indigestible wodge of text that you have to scroll down in screenfuls to get to the bottom of. The magical thing about web pages is the ease with which separate pages can be linked together. Take advantage of this by having a simple, clean, uncluttered opening page, with good links to other pages on your site. Ease of navigation is something which makes visiting a pleasure.

Accessibility. You may want to make your site accessible to as many people as possible, including those with a degree of visual impairment. The Royal National Institute for the Blind produces excellent web design guidelines. One technical issue for them is browser compatibility. Pages with frames preserve constant design elements between separate pages, but they make navigation difficult for some browsers, especially those designed for the visually impaired.

Overheads. Web overheads are things which affect the speed your page will load onto a visitor's screen. Remember that not everyone has broadband, so avoid large image files and be very sparing in the use of backgrounds and wallpapers. The standard resolution for web images is only 72 dpi, and image sizes should be limited - I've found that anything over 500 pixels wide takes too long to load. If you want to include high-resolution images on your site keep them separate, and use links from thumbnail images. Warn potential viewers that these images are large and will require more patience than the guy in the broadband advert displays.

Finally, because of browser and screen differences, remember that what you see is not what everyone else sees. Now go read a book.

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This year's Burns season has came and went, as we say. Much haggis has been consumed, sometimes accompanied by a delicate jus of neeps and the ubiquitous tasteless half-strawberry and sprig of redcurrant. Much whisky has been swallied, songs have been sung, and The Immortal Memory has been refreshed up and down the land.

My wife and I have held an annual DIY Burns Supper in our wee but-and-ben for a few years now. Neibours and freends of a musical and poetic disposition have entertained each other well here in Bag End Sur Mer, with no thought to bring oor talents to the notice of a wider public. However, the local ‘Rural' got to hear about it, and invited us to come along as a concert party this year. The music was not an issue - Jane, Rachel and Chris have lovely voices, Jean is a super accompanist, and goodness knows Burns wrote some wonderful songs.

The poetry angle got me thinking however, and I decided to dispense with tradition and demonstrate the Burns legacy through reading the work of six living Scottish poets. I have to tell you that the audience was very appreciative, and proved that poets don't have to be dead to be popular. For the record, the poets I chose were W.N. Herbert, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Alastair Reid, Kathleen Jamie, Janet Paisley and the Bard of Dunbar.

I don't think I can ever go back to reading Immortal Memories. The selection process was great fun, the company enjoyed hearing poetic voices they hadn't heard before, and I feel I've done a little bit for my contemporaries.

Colin Will
colin.will@zen.co.uk

Information Scotland Vol. 3 (1) February 2005

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Last updated: 21 March 2005