History of the Web-I decided to begin my investigation into web design by looking at the history of the web. The man credited with having created the web was a researcher at the European High-Energy Particle Physics lab, the Conseil Européenne pour la Recherche Nucleaire ( CERN), his name is Tim Berners-Lee. It was created as a tool for use at CERN for collaboration between physicists and other researchers in the high energy physics community. The proposal for the web then called Hypertext and CERN was first circulated in 1989 and was refined in 1990. The proposal used three new technologies; HTML( although at this point HTML has been around with it potential unrealised for about 30years), HTTP(hyper text transfer protocol) and a web browser client that could be used on all computers.

In late 1989 a line mode user interface was produced, CERN named it the word wide web or www and in May 1991 for the first time the information-sharing system using HTML, HTTP, and a client software program (www) was fully operational on the multiplatform computer network at the CERN laboratories in Switzerland. CERN also had the first ever web server, so named by the physicists at CERN. The server stored all of the documents coded with HTML elements and by the end of 1992 they had gone from just one server to over fifty world wide with the line mode user interface becoming more widely available. By June

Reaserch

1999 there were more than 720,000 public information servers and in April 2001 there were over 24 million servers.

In 1993 the first ever public web browser was made available, it was called Mosaic and was created by an undergraduate student at the University of Illinois, Marc Andreesen.

A History of Web Browsers-There are many different web browsers available today most people have no idea how many there actually are but there are 5 main ones that have a note able share in the market, these are; Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari and Opera. However in 1993 we began with just one available web browser called mosaic this was followed shortly by Netscape in 1994, Internet explorer in 1995 and Opera in 1996. Internet explorer then updated to Internet Explorer4 in 1997 in January of the same year Mosaic was discontinued and Mozilla was released in 1998. In 2001 Internet Explorer Updated again to Internet Explorer6 in 2003 Apple’s Safari was released shortly followed by Mozilla’s update to Firefox in 2004. Internet Explorer then released its third update in 2006 to Internet Explorer7 followed by safari’s update to Safari iOS in 2007 and the release of google’s Chrome in 2008. At the same time Netscape was discontinued in February 2008 and in 2011 Internet Explorer released another update to Internet Explorer9. These five browsers run on four different layout engines; Gecko, WebKit, Trident and Presto. Firefox runs on Gecko, Chrome and Safari both run on WebKit, Internet Explorer runs on Trident and Opera runs on Presto.

History of Web Design-To look at the history of web design I will first need to look at the tools used by web designers and developers in order to look into the history of them. It is commonly known that the majority of web pages are created using HTML(hyper text markup language) which is usually accompanied by CSS(cascading style sheet) and sometimes JavaScript. However the tools used are much more varied than those three things and in some cases may use none of the three. Here is a list of the main tools used in web design; HTML( The latest version is HTML5 although browsers are not expected to be fully compatible with HTML5 until 2022), CSS(The most recent version is CSS3 again not all browsers are fully compatible with this version), Dreamweaver(Adobe’s web design and development tool which has a visual interface as well as the coding side, It also allows you to use Adobe’s device central on which it will open your web page in all browsers that you specify including older versions of browsers and ones that may not be compatible with your machine and sends images of what it looks like in them back to you so you can check the compatibility more effectively.), JavaScript(this is a scripting language which powers special effects and user interactions on the web and allows you to create effects that are not possible with Pure HTML and CSS although HTML5 may change this, it is however more complicated but the introduction of jQuery has made it much easier for anyone to use JavaScript), Photoshop (Photoshop can be used to create web sites without having to look at code, the old imageready tool which is now integrated into the main program allows you to visually create your layout while it produces the code necessary to make it work on the web), PHP(PHP is a serverside language which most content management systems such as wordpress use. It works in conjunction with MySQL), MySQL(MySQL is an opensource database server), Wordpress( wordpress was primarily created as a blogging tool however is today widely used for web sites, It has a template system which allows the overall aesthetic to be changed without affecting the content it is also very easy to get hold of a variety of different themes), Drupal (Drupal is a content management system similar to Wordpress), Joomla (Joomla

is another content management system), Blogger (Blogger is a hosted blog publishing service with support for private and multi-user blogs), Squarespace (Squarespace is another content management system although this one is not free it must be paid for), Flash ( Flash can be used to build interactive animated web sites using ActionScript and vector based images and animations it was the only way to produce rich exciting interactive web sites until the advance of JavaScript and the recent update of HTML. Middle of the last decade promotional material claimed most browsers had flash enabled making in more pervasive than JavaScript however more recent ‘snubbing’ by Apple and its CEO Steve Jobs has resulted in flash not playing on apple devices such as the iphone and ipad), Silverlight (Silverlight is microsofts version of Flash however it hasn’t had the same success as Flash so it is hardly a competitor.) and finally Web browsers (obviously web browsers are required to display your site and due to varying levels of compatibility they can affect your site as it must be compatible with all the widely used browsers.)

Web site Colour-I also researched the colours of web pages and the psychology of colour in order to know what colours are best to use in web design, colours have an effect on our emotions within 90seconds of viewing them. Some colours promote feelings of trust and reliability such as Blue which is the second most popular colour to

Reaserch

be used in web design next to white which promotes a feeling of clean order and is the easiest background to use in order to view the content clearly.

Practitioners-I will be trying to contact some practitioners to gain insight into the industry of web design so I have come up with a short list of questions to asked them, these are;1. When Did you first become interested in web design?2. Which side of web design do you prefer, the designing or the developing?3. What is your favourite ‘language’?4. When you first started how did you get your first client?5. Do you find that you are often asked to either re-brand or design a logo for a company you are designing a web site for?6. How many long-term clients do you get in comparison to one-off jobs?7. Do you currently use HTML5?8. What effect do you think HTML5 will have on Flash, will HTML5 eventually render flash obsolete? I looked at creating a HTML email with a more interactive way to present the questions but I found that quite a few of the practitioners I looked at used contact forms instead of just listing their email address.

I looked at severall Practitioners during my reaserch and sent the questions to a few of them, Sarah Parmenter is one who i particularly liked not least because she is inspirational having set up her own web design company at the age of 19 and in the 8 years since has received alot of recognition for her work, this includes being listed as one of the 40 most noteable and prominent female designers, one of the 50 best female web designers worldwide and one of the top 10 women you need to know in interface design.

Unfortunately I have not yet received responses to my Questions but have managed to fine answers to certain questions through interviews available on the internet. These were Sarah Parmenter’s ‘answers’;1.She first became interested in web design when she started “dabbeling” in it

Practitioners

at the age of 14.2.She prefers to develop websites rather than to just design them for someone else to develop.3.Her favorite ‘language’ is CSS and her favourite JavaScript framework is jQueery.4.She got her first clients through cheep pricing although she does not advise this as it can be damaging to your reputation making it hard to get a better client base, she also got her initiall clients through recomendation.6.Sarah Parmenter has severall long term clients even one or two from when she first started out as well as having severall one off job oppertunities.I could not find answers to the other three of my questions which was dissapointing as the last two were the two i was most interested in.

Dan Cederholm is another practitioner who i liked. He has authord a few of the leading books on web design teaching people about web standards and how to use them more effectively. He authored the phrase “bulletproof webpage” by which he means it has no flaws. Again i was able to pull answers to one of my questions from Interviews i found on the web and in magazines;1. It all happened rather slowly. I’ve always been interested in computers. My brother had an old AT+T dual 5 1/4” floppy machine in 1985 or something. I was fascinated. We’d play primitive games in glorious green monochrome, like Zaxxon and some Olympics game that required you to pound the spacebar really fast in order to run, jump hurdles, etc. Anyhow, fast forward 6 or so years, and I have a Mac. A Classic II that was obsolete the week after I had purchased it. I signed up with AOL just as the Web was beginning. It was exciting. But what I really wanted to do was play music. A few more years go by. I find myself working at a record label, working at a desk with a computer and web access for the first time. I was immediately hooked. I loved the marriage of the creative with the technical. From that point on (probably in 1997 or so) I consumed all the code I could, viewing source on just about any page I would come across. From there I left the music business and took an entry level job at a regional ISP - at first answering phones, and later doing a bit of design. A year or so at a failed dot com led me to Fast Company magazine in early 2000, where I went on to hone my skills in the world of standards-compliant design and development.

For my creative artifact i am doing a small web site that will show a summary of my findings in this project. I began by planning what would go on each page of the site it was to have a home page with four content pages, After i knew what i was going to put on each page i started thinking about the layout and drew some thumbnails to get ideas. when i came up with an idea i liked i then planned out each page and in photoshop put together a visual experiment.

Development and Contact Report

Industry Contact Report-For my Industry contact I came up with a short list of questions that I wanted to ask practitioners of web design. I wanted to find out what the web design usually involved, did they just design the sites or did the also get to develop them? Also what coding ‘language’ they found most useful or most liked to use. I thought that by only having a short list of questions I would be more likely to get a reply, however I have not yet had a reply from any of the practitioners I emailed. Despite this I did manage to get some of my questions answered through existing interviews of web designers. One web designer I managed to find interviews for is Sarah Parmenter, she set up her own web design company, You Know Who Designs at the age of nineteen and in the eight years since then has received a lot of recognition for her work. This includes being listed as one of the 40 most notable and prominent female designers, one of the 50 best female web designers worldwide and one of the top 10 women you need to know in interface design. I managed to find out that Sarah Parmenter first became interested in web design when she was 14years old which answers my first question, and in answer to my second ques-tion she actually prefers the development side of web design to the design side. Her favorite language is CSS and she like jQueery best out of the JavaScript frameworks, which answers my third question. She got her first clients by pricing cheap-ly and through recommendations although she does not advise this as by pricing cheaply at the beginning you struggle to get away from the ‘grade’ of client you get by being cheap. I could not find an answer to my fifth question which was inquiring how often web design involves rebranding and logo design. Sarah Parmenter has several long-term clients as well as one off jobs; she still has clients from when she first started doing web design. Unfortunately I did not find an answer to my seventh question, which inquired as to weather she currently uses HTML5, I was interested to know to what extent it is currently used as compatibility is extremely varied from browser to browser at the moment. I did not get an answer to the final question either; I wanted to know what effect she thought HTML5 would eventually have on the use of Flash as it is rumored that HTML5 should render Flash obsolete. Although I got an answer to most of my questions I am disappointed to not be able to get answers to the last two questions as these were two I was most interested in knowing the answer to. HTML5 is the future of web design however I have heard it is not expected to be fully implemented until 2022 and I really wanted to know weather web designers had started to use it and weather they thought it would manage to take over from Flash and how fast it would do this. I was interested to learn that Sarah Parmenter would advise against offering cheap web design when you start out, she says it gets you clients at the time but strongly believes it can be damaging to your career and reputation as a designer.

After having planned out my creative artifact i then coded it in html and brought it online, it is quite simple but it fits to my design and shows the information i planned for it to show. These are images of the site but the site is online hosted on my website with a link on my blog.

Creative Artifact

http://ezinearticles.com/?Choose-and-Use-the-Best-Colors---The-Psychology-of-Color&id=12855

http://www.hitmill.com/internet/web_history.html

http://www.youknowwhodesign.com/

http://thegeektalk.com/interviews/sarah-parmenter/

http://psftb.ryanhavoctaylor.com/design/sarah-parmenter/

http://5by5.tv/pipeline/37

http://thinkvitamin.com/design/dan-cederholm-on-bulletproof-web-design-css3-and-dribbble/

http://webstandardsgroup.org/features/dan-cederholm.cfm

Bibliography