#25436
Common Visual Design Elements of Weblogs
Weblogs (blogs) have been heralded as a new space for collaborative creativity, a medium for breaking free of the constraints of previous forms and allowing authors greater access to flexible publishing methods. This generalization seems extreme: genre studies done by Crowston and Williams (2000) and Shepherd and Watters (1998) lend credence to the notion that weblogs are evolutionary descendents of other visual media, such as newspapers and pamphlets. In this study, we apply content-analytic methods (Bauer, 2000) to a random sample of weblogs as a means of exploring current visual trends within the blogosphere.
Scheidt, Lois Ann and Elijah Wright. Into the Blogosphere (2004). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging
#26490
Communicating Effectively with Your Web Developer
A rather stressful part of optimizing some sites can be working with a web developer who doesn't understand the importance of search engine friendly design. Sometimes these developers can be frustrating or keep you from getting your work done right. This article contains a number of thing to keep in mind and to avoid when working in these situations.
Sullivan Cassidy, Jennifer. SEOchat (2005). Articles>Web Design>Collaboration
#26849
Communication Challenges in the WC3's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 
In the first part of this article, we analyze a number of communication challenges and relate them to problems in conveying the November draft of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0. Based on our analysis, the second part of our article offers a number of recommendations for improving the comprehensibility of the WCAG 2.0 for its various intended audiences. Although our discussion has the November draft as its focal point, the recommendations are more widely applicable to other complex documents with diverse audiences. In the final part, we propose a new vision for the WCAG.
Brys, Catherine M. and Wim Vanderbauwhede. Technical Communication Online (2006). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Standards
#31419
Community: From Little Things, Big Things Grow
Any community—online or off—must start slowly, and be nurtured. You cannot “just add community.” It must be cared for, and hosted; it takes time and people with great communication skills to set the tone and tend the conversation.
Oates, George. List Apart, A (2008). Articles>Web Design>Community Building
#31915
Company Name First in Microcontent? Sometimes!
Typically, you should deemphasize your company's name in links, but a new guideline recommends frontloading the name for search engine links under certain conditions.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2008). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Hypertext
#31197
Comparing the Usability of Three Dual-Language School Websites
This study evaluated the usability of three websites for Spanish-English Dual Language K-8 schools. Twelve participants (6 parents, 6 teachers) reviewed and performed tasks on the three public school websites. Site usability was determined through both objective and subjective measures, including task completion time, first-click, total number of pages visited, task success, perceived task difficulty, user satisfaction, and overall ranked preference. Results indicated that one site was preferred more than the others by both user groups and resulted in more efficient search behavior. Clear navigation, link terminology, and proper use of both languages were found to be critical factors contributing to the sites’ usability.
Naidu, Shivashankar, Veronica D. Hinkle and Sav Shrestha. Usability News (2007). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Localization
#26518
Compelling Headlines to Improve Your Search Engine Ranking
Write compelling headings that attract both search engines and your desired kind of site visitor.
Jackson, Steve. Webcredible (2005). Articles>Web Design>Search>Search Engine Optimization
#26777
Competitive Analysis: Understanding the Market Context
Effective web design, from the simplest brochure website to the most complex web application, needs to involve an understanding of context. While user-centered design focuses on user needs/tasks, and information architecture focuses on content, these two aspects alone offer an incomplete picture. What is missing is the context: the environment in which the website or web application is used as well as the market in which it exists.
Withrow, Jason. Boxes and Arrows (2006). Articles>Web Design>Audience Analysis>Rhetoric
#18171
Complexity Theory as a Way of Understanding our Role in the World-Wide Web
Complexity theory offers a way of understanding our role within the World Wide Web. Postulating a rhetorical object based on object-oriented analysis and design, we can harness a number of ideas from complexity theory to gain a new perspective on the Web. This paper reviews a number of complexity ideas that may help technical communicators grapple with the exponential growth in the volume of inter-related and interacting rhetorical objects on the Web, viewing the rhetorical situation as the result of the law of increasing returns, which has brought us through a phase transition to a new environment, with its own emergent properties, creating new roles for writers, and new work for managers.
Price, Jonathan R. Communication Circle, The (1999). Articles>Information Design>Theory>Web Design
#10553
Since the advent of the Web, we've seen a myriad of design schemas evolve--from the simple navigation/content style of site to the cluttered portal. And as this evolution has progressed, so did the war between UI designers and usability experts. On one side, there are usability experts who want to make every website look exactly like Yahoo because users know Yahoo and so they will automatically know how to use the site. On the other side, there are UI designers who want to design entire sites in Flash and Shockwave just because it's cool. Overly dramatic? Well, yes, maybe a little--but it's not entirely a false analysis. Many UI designers that work with usability folk complain that their creativity is hampered, whereas many usability gurus complain that designers are confusing a site's user with their visual semantics. But are the goals of UI designers and the usability folk that far apart?
Cecil, Richard F. Digital Web Magazine (2000). Articles>Usability>Web Design>Semantic
#30770
Comprehending the Google Dance to Stay Updated
The updating of massive indexes by Google is not a smooth affair by any means. Notably, as a result of updating process, old indexes do not simply yield to new indexes, but there is quite an haphazard movement in transition. It takes a couple of days for Google to complete its update. Especially during this period, both old and new indexes get their place on www.google.com, albeit alternatively or even in unpredictable ways before new indexes stabilize there for all to see. The fluctuations witnessed on Google between transition from old indexes to new indexes seem as if Google were dancing. Hence, in SEO parlance comes the word Google Dance. Varying indexes have a say in the final rankings just when PageRank calculation sets in action. So, the fluctuating indexes of your site should not be a cause of concern when Google is dancing. Wait for Google to come to a halt and you will see all the things stabilize.
Azam, Rahbre and Tabassum Naz. Amateur Writerz (2008). Articles>Web Design>Business Communication>Search Engine Optimization
#30228
Connectors for Dashboards and Portals
The building block system includes several types of Connectors that make it possible for designers and architects to link the different areas of a Dashboard together via a consistent, easily understandable navigation model. The system also ensures the resulting information architecture can grow in response to changing needs and content. There's no special stacking hierarchy for the Connectors. However, they do have an official stacking size (most are size 3) in order to keep Dashboards constructed with the building blocks internally consistent.
Lamantia, Joe. Boxes and Arrows (2007). Articles>Web Design>Information Design
#27658
Constructing a One-Stop "Answer Station" Website for Software Users
The web allows us to easily provide updated documentation to our users, but why stop there? There is more to making users successful quickly than just providing documentation. By creating a complete 'Answer Station' that is accessible from the application or product, we can not only direct users to that updated documentation, but we can also provide information about technical support, consulting, training, sales, etc. This article discusses writing a proposal for an Answer Station, determining content, working with other departments to gather information, designing the site, making that design work with an existing corporate website, dealing with tool issues, and finally, going live.
Bleiel, Nicoletta A. and Beth A. Williams. WritersUA (2004). Articles>Documentation>Web Design>Help
#25558
Content Delivery in the "Blogosphere"
While a few educators have already started using blogs in the classroom, more have focused on the potential of blogging in teaching and learning.
Ferdig, Richard E. and Kaye D. Trammell. T.H.E. Journal (2004). Articles>Web Design>Communication>Blogging
#26146
Content for Tourism and Hospitality Sites
My worst experiences with hospitality sites have been to do with vague location, online timetables, poor follow-up communication, and out of date information. I have wasted days as a result, which I hate.
McAlpine, Rachel. Quality Web Content (2004). Articles>Web Design>Marketing>Writing
#24769
Hiding a commercial ad in editorial text is the latest form of internet garbage. Content Hypertext Spam refers to a link within an article that users assume will lead to relevant content, further information on the topic. Wrong. It deceptively leads to an irrelevant site that tries to sell something. Discover the 14 reasons why this new gimmick is damaging to users and webmasters alike.
Streight, Steven. Blogger.com (2004). Articles>Business Communication>Web Design>Spam
#22648
In this White Paper, we examine the benefits of automated content management, and demonstrate where efficiencies can be gained within your organization. Web sites with more than a few information pages may benefit from content management systems (CMS). Content management systems are automated tools that allow for web site content to be created and administered on a recurring basis. The result puts the responsibility for content development into the hands of the authors (where it belongs) and out of the hands of the programmers.
Sloan, Brian and Scott Duffy. XGuru (2002). Articles>Content Management>Web Design
#23924
Lorsqu'une personne lit un imprimé, soit qu'elle l'ait acheté, soit qu'elle l'ait emprunté, à défaut d'être déjà tout à fait familiarisée avec la maquette de l'éditeur, elle connaît généralement la réputation de cet imprimé, ainsi que son positionnement thématique, géographique.
Hardy, Jean-Marc. Redaction (2004). (French) Articles>Web Design
#25492
Conversations in the Blogosphere: An Analysis "From the Bottom Up" 
The 'blogosphere' has been claimed to be a densely interconnected conversation, with bloggers linking to other bloggers, referring to them in their entries, and postingcomments on each other's blogs. Most such characterizations have privileged a subset of popular blogs, known asthe 'A-list.' This study empirically investigates the extent to which, and in what patterns, blogs are interconnected, taking as its point of departure randomly-selected blogs. Quantitative social network analysis, visualization of linkpatterns, and qualitative analysis of references and comments in pairs of reciprocally-linked blogs show thatA-list blogs are overrepresented and central in the network, although other groupings of blogs are moredensely interconnected. At the same time, a majority of blogs link sparsely or not at all to other blogs in the sam-ple, suggesting that the blogosphere is partially interconnected and sporadically conversational.
Herring, Susan C., Inna Kouper, John C. Paolillo, Lois Ann Scheidt,Michael Tyworth, Peter Welsch, Elijah Wright and Ning Yu. (We)blog Research on Genre Project, The (2005). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging
#30806
Convert Atom Documents to JSON
Converting an Atom document to JSON might, at first, appear to be a fairly straightforward task. Atom is, after all, just a bit of XML and XML-to-JSON conversion tools are widely available. However, the Atom format is more than just a set of XML elements and attributes. A number of subtle details can make proper handling of Atom difficult. This article describes those issues and demonstrates a mechanism implemented by the Apache Abdera project to convert Atom documents into JSON and produces a result that is readable, usable, and complete.
Snell, James. IBM (2008). Articles>Web Design>XML>Ajax
#24221
Many FrameMaker users need to publish their documents on the World Wide Web. The best approach is to use a converter, which preserves the format and organization of the original FrameMaker document. Good converters can handle long, complex documents that contain elements such as table of contents, index, line drawings, bitmap graphics, tables, footnotes, and equations. We discuss the benefits of having a single source document for paper and Web, the techniques for creating documents that can be converted easily, and the powerful conversion tools available today.
Jackson, Ken and Sonya E. Keene. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Web Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker
#24592
Converting Print Read to Web Scan Text
Web sites are full of print media text. Shame on them. Users are in a hurry. They hate dense blocks of lengthy blabbering. They ignore most text on their hunt for Relevant Content. Find out how to convert Print Read text into easily consumed information for the web.
Streight, Steven. Blogger.com (2004). Articles>Web Design>Scanning>Writing
#11891
Converting Science News for the Web
With the Internet emerging as a primary newsgathering source, many traditional media outlets have converted their products for online viewing. This paper explores how two science news magazines, New Scientist and Science News, have approached this challenge. Elements of hyptertext theory are also included.
Carsten, Laura D. EServer (2001). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Scientific Communication
#24019
Cookies: Just a Little Data Snack
To read the New York Times Web site, you must open a free user account and log in each time you visit. That means yet another user name and password to remember. Fortunately, if you always use the same computer, you can set up your account so that you're logged in automatically whenever you connect to the site. The site does that by using cookies -- another of those silly-sounding bits of programmers' vocabulary that have crept into mainstream coverage of the Internet. But over the past year or so, this practice has become controversial because some people view it as an invasion of privacy. Others have bought into rumors or read inaccurate press reports suggesting that cookies threaten the security of their hard drives.
Ivey, Keith C. Editorial Eye, The (1998). Articles>Web Design>Privacy
#22647
This document discusses the significant opportunities available for business to use websites to interact directly with their various audiences. Web services technology has enabled the Corporate Web to evolve from static 'brochureware' into a 'behavior-shaping' communications and relationship-building tool.
Colebeck, Andrew. XGuru (2002). Articles>Web Design>Intranets
