Module 4 – How do you want to say it?
The Website toolkit
We have now explored 3 course modules - looking at the importance of preparation in Module 1, then in Modules 2 and 3 exploring the first two of the crucial 3 questions you must be able to answer before starting to design a website;
- Who is your website for?
- What do you want to say?
- How will you say it?
In module 4 we are moving onto the 3rd of these questions. We will be looking at some of the options you have when designing a website, some of the key tools from the website ‘toolkit’, as well as some of the more specialised tools that are available. We will also be considering DDA issues (Disability Discrimination Act).
The Website Toolkit
The World Wide Web (WWW) is nothing like it was, even compared to 5 years ago. It has attracted hundreds of thousands of creative software and hardware designers and they have collaboratively changed the face of the Web, turning it from something of interest to only geeky computer students and professionals, into a major worldwide communication and information sharing medium available to all.
New computer hardware developments and the competitive marketplace have produced fast and reliable PC’s for less than £300 and owning a computer is no longer the equivalent of owning a fast sports car. In some families, every child has their own laptop and most businesses are now fully dependent on computers and the internet to run their day to day work.
Similarly, computer software development, particularly in the realm of Open Source (free and collaboratively developed) software, has produced a huge range of computer software products which we could only have imagined 5 years ago. For example, Open Office is a fully functional, free, competitor to Microsoft Office; and some Country Councils in the UK are converting entire divisions to Open Office software. It is that trusted.
One interesting aspect of hardware and software development is that the Internet itself has become a tool for the development of itself. As the Internet has benefited from all the changes, it has become its own agent for making further development possible.
All these hardware and software developments have contributed to making the Internet, and particularly the World Wide Web, a vibrant and continuously developing communication medium, bringing with them a potentially bewildering range of choices for anyone now embarking on designing a new website.
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