WEBBY WORLD

You might think of scrapbooking as the hobby of your prim and proper aunt or grandma, arranging pictures and mementos for posterity. But it’s far more than little old ladies; in fact, scrapbooking is a $2.5 billion a year industry, and that’s a figure that buys a lot of memories. But these days, instead of photos, scissors, and glue, more and more of those happy pasts are being preserved digitally. Not, however, for web pages. The scrapbooks still exist, printed up or e-mailed to friends and relatives. But all the work is done on computer. To those with plenty of hard drive time under their belts that might seem simple enough – just lay everything out in Photoshop or something similar. And some do. More and more scrapbookers, however, are using special software, which has become big business – digital scrapbooking even has its own magazine. There are at least ten books devoted to the craft on Amazon. Far more than any newspaper editor, scrapbookers will agonize for hours over the layou...

Colorful graphics and fancy visuals may do more than spice up a Web site. According to three WSU researchers, they have a direct influence on online consumer behavior. “The characteristics of a Web site that have shown to be important include visual appeal, navigability, download delays and security, to name a few,” said John Wells, assistant professor of management information systems. “But what is lacking is a deeper understanding for why these characteristics have proved to be effective.. The WSU research team – Wells, Research Associate Veena Parboteeah and MIS Professor Joseph Valacich – first experimented with these features, also called cues, a year and a half ago on a test Web site to distinguish which affect a consumer’s behavior. These cues can either be task-relevant – features that directly affect the functionality of the Web site – or non-task-relevant – graphics present only for aesthetic purposes. Two-hundred sixteen students from beginning MIS classes participated in th...

The web statistics and analytics available to web site owners to track web visitors is often an underutilized tool. While everyone wants access to their web stats, they don't usually know what to do with the information, nor do they seek assistance in analyzing the data. Your Webmaster should be able to tell you what the stats mean, but the analysis needs to be done by someone with some web marketing experience. Having said that, there are some important things any web site owner looking at their stats should know: Ever hear someone talking, perhaps bragging, about how many "hits" their web site got last week, last month or last year? Don't be too impressed, more than likely they're misinformed. They're just passing along the misinformation to you because it sounds really good. "Hits" is not a measure of how many people have visited your site! "Hits" actually refers to how many files from your web site have been opened in the course of view...

Domain name registration is the first step to start your website. Like naming a newborn child, your website too requires a name to be known and referred to on web. Domain name registration is about identifying your website on the net. Just as you prefer your child to have sensible name that reflects your belief and hope for her future, your website too needs carefully selected domain name before you proceed for domain name registration. In this article we will explore important steps for domain name registration. Generic Domain Name Ideally, domain name may be short and simple for remembering easily. Generic names are easy to remember, and there is always a generic name, no matter which business you are in. Unfortunately, for domain name registration, most generic domains are no longer to be had. For example, if you deal in real estate, you will find domain names like property.com, properti.com, estate.com, etc. are already taken. If you do not mind country-specific domain extensions (...

We have all heard of HTML. HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language. What is a hypertext markup language, you ask? It is a language for specifying how certain text should appear. When you design a web page, you want certain content or text to be displayed in a specific way. You may want some text to appear in bold or italics, while other text you may want to display larger or in color. HTML is not the only type of markup language. There are markup languages that apply to other types of applications, such as word processing or other software applications. However, HTML was by far the most important markup language ever created, as it became the standard for displaying information on what is now known as the world wide web, or internet. However, HTML is not the only markup language being used on the internet today. Another, better version of HTML evolved as programmers began to realize that HTML was innately flawed in a variety of ways. By 1999, a new specification was written in a lang...

There are literally millions of websites on the Internet these days. How do you make sure that your website is not lost in virtual obscurity? Well, there are several key elements that every great website has. These elements are described below: Visible Elements * How eyes see the site The first item that's seen on the website is the upper-left corner. From there, the eye moves to the upper-right corner, and then it moves in a zigzag fashion from elements that grab its attention. Knowing this fact, you'll notice that most great websites have their company's logo and key messages positioned in these most coveted eye catchers! * Layout Layout of the site is extremely important. Great websites have a consistent layout and repeat certain elements of it throughout the site. * Alignment Elements on the website have consistent alignment. Choose either left or right justification and stay away from centered alignment. * Colors Use 2-3 colors throughout the site...

Hierarchy Any organization needs a hierarchy of importance, if only to determine basic navigation structures for the user. Most "chunks" of information can and should ranked in importance, and organized by the degree of interrelationship among units. Once you have determined a logical set of priorities, you can build a hierarchy from the most important or most general concepts, down to the most specific or optional topics. Hierarchical organizations are virtually a necessity on the Web, because most home page-and-link schemes depend on hierarchies, moving from the most general overview of your site (your home page), down through submenus and content pages that become increasingly more specific. Relationships When confronted with a new and complex information system users begin to build mental models, and then use these models to assess relationships among topics, and to make guesses about where to find things they haven't seen before. The success of your Web site as an or...

There are fundamental rhetorical and organizational reasons for subdividing any large body of information, whether it is delivered on the printed page or in a World Wide Web site. Underlying all organizational schemes are the limitations of the human brain in holding and remembering information. Cognitive psychologists have known for decades that most people can only hold about four to seven discrete chunks of information in short-term memory. The goal of most organizational schemes is to keep the number of local variables the reader must keep in short-term memory to a minimum, using combination of graphic design and layout conventions along with editorial division of information into discrete units. The way people seek out and use information also suggests that smaller, discrete units of information are more functional and easier to navigate through than long, undifferentiated units. Most Web sites contain reference information that people seek in small units. Users rarely read long c...

IntroductionCascading Style Sheets (CSS) are a collection of formatting rules that control the appearance of content in a web page. They are very useful for maintaining a web site since its appearance (controlled by properties of HTML tags) can be managed from just one file. CSS Styles also enhance your site's look, accessibility and reduces file size. Another main advantage is reusability - instead of defining the properties of fonts, backgrounds, borders, bullets, uniform tags, etc. each time you use them you can just assign the corresponding css style in the class property. You can store CSS styles directly in each document or, for more control and flexibility, in an external style sheet. There are 3 types of CSS Styles: Custom CSS (Class) styles: create a customized style with the set attributes. These class styles can be applied to any tag. HTML Tag styles: redefine the formatting for a particular tag, such as . All text formatted with the h1 tag is immediately updated. Advanc...