Slides from a guest lecture given to an Intro to Web Design class going over lots of very general topics related to web development. The purpose was mainly to give them information and resources to guide them with where they could go next.
department • Been doing web development professionally since 2003 • At VU for the last 7 years • Finishing MBA this spring • Husband of Jenelle Orelup (VU BSFA) • And since it's Halloween.....
do now with JS/HTML5/CSS3 possible before the browsers supported it • Use to be the defacto way to play video • Limited support (Apple doesn't) • Can move faster than standards
Still not a complete • Browser support varies • Do the things Flash does but even easier • Let's look at something cool ( http://soulwire.github.com/Makisu/ ) • The best thing is that you can easily see what is being done if you want to learn more
Thinking about how the user uses your site • What functions do they use most? • What info do they need right away? • Is it obvious to the user with what they need to do? • Does the site perform quickly?
Find out ◦ Location ◦ Browser • Also Track ◦ Pages viewed ◦ Time on site ◦ Did they accomplish what you wanted? • Lets look at VU ( http://google.com/analytics/ )
• Used to determine which is more effective • Must have desired result • Can be as complex as completely different layouts to as simple as different button colors ◦ http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2991-behind-the-scenes-ab-testing-part- 3-final • Must have a significant number of cases to get valid data
done • Solutions created for standard problems • Some examples ◦ Twitter Bootstrap ( http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/ ) ◦ 960 Grid System ◦ Zurb Foundation
to create every page by hand • Content management systems allow you to create a "template" that others can use without knowing HTML • Currently VU is going through the process of moving to a new CMS • Makes life easier for everyone
base • Can do in a language that you may already know • Appcelerator Titanium ◦ Compiles to native code from HTML5/JS • PhoneGap/Cordova ◦ Runs inside a "webview" inside a native app ◦ Can use nearly identical code for web version also