In the beginning of the World Wide Web (www) in the early 90’s, websites contained just text. In the decade since the technology has evolved to the point where you can have live video, stock quotes, music, and in general quite a varied assortment of stuff on a website. Of course, the more complicated and feature-rich your website, the more technical knowledge you’ll need in order to create it. In this tutorial we’ll focus on the basics.
HTML
HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language, and it’s the special code that turns your text and images into a website. Specifically, it’s the code that tells your browser exactly how to display the information contained in a web page.
Let’s take a look at some HTML right now. Right-click anywhere in this browser window and in the popup menu that comes up select View Source. Your system’s text editor should open up and display the HTML code for this page. Look through the code and you’ll see how mixed in with the HTML code is some of this text that you’ve just been reading. The HTML that you see is telling your browser to display the text and images in a certain way.
If you aim to be a web designer or be able to design websites, it’s almost inevitable that you’ll need to learn at least some HTML. As computer languages go (and HTML isn’t technically even a language), HTML is easy.
THE WEB DESIGN PROCESS
There are a number of steps to take between thinking of a website and then seeing it be popular on the web:
1. You get an idea for a website.
2. You outline the contents of the website, perhaps drawing some rough sketches on paper.
3. You create the HTML code that ties the words and pictures together into a website.
4. You get a domain name and host the website through a hosting service.
5. You publicize the website through links, search engines, and ads.
6. You perform periodic maintenance on the website.
Of course, each of these steps can have many sub-steps. Learning web design is a step-by-step thing. There’s so much to learn initially that it can be daunting. So, have a vision of grandeur somewhere in the back of your head, but keep your lessons bite-sized.
RECOMMENDED EXERCISES FOR WEB DESIGNER
These lessons will sink in more if you attempt and perhaps even complete the exercises I’ve provided at the bottom of each page.
Think of a good idea for a website and create a rough outline on paper. Make sure to include possible graphic designs and diagrams of how different pages link to each other. Use a word processor or a pad of paper to create the text. You may want to create multiple versions and settle on the best one.
Go to the library and borrow an HTML reference book. You’ll need one, and although there are many online HTML reference websites, it’s a lot easier to thumb through a book than to search through an online reference.