Designing Web Interfaces Interactive Workbook

Introduction

What You Will Need

A networked PC with access to the Internet. The faster the connection, the less time you spend on the "World Wide Wait."

A Web browser with as many plug-ins as you can support (to experience as much marketing media as possible) and an e-mail account. In your browser preferences, please enable cookies.

How This Book Is Organized

In this book, and the others in this series, you are presented with a series of interactive labs. Each lab begins with Learning Objectives that define what exercises (or tasks) are covered in that lab. This is followed by an overview of the concepts that will be further explored through the exercises, which are the heart of each lab.

Each exercise consists of either a series of steps that you will follow to perform a specific task or a presentation of a particular scenario. Questions that are designed to help you discover the important things on your own are then asked of you. The answers to these questions are given at the end of the exercises, along with more in-depth discussion of the concepts explored.

At the end of each lab is a series of multiple-choice Self-Review Questions, which are designed to bolster your learning experience by providing opportunities to check your absorbtion of important material. The answers to these questions appear in the Appendix. There are also additional Self-Review Questions at this book's companion Web site, found at http://www.phptr.com/phptrinteractive/.

Finally, at the end of each chapter you will find a Test Your Thinking section, which consists of a series of projects designed to solidify all of the skills you havelearned in the chapter. If you have successfully completed all of the labs in the chapter, you should be able to tackle these projects with few problems. There are not always "answers" to these projects, but where appropriate, you will find guidance and/or solutions at the companion Web site.

The final element of this book actually doesn't appear in the book at all. It is the Companion Website, and it is located at http://www.phptr.com/rees.

This Companion Website is closely integrated with the content of this book, and we encourage you to visit often. It is designed to provide a unique interactive online experience that will enhance your education. As mentioned, you will find guidance and solutions that will help you complete the projects found in the Test Your Thinking section of each chapter.

You will also find additional Self-Review Questions for each chapter, which are meant to give you more opportunities to become familiar with terminology and concepts presented in the publications. In the Author's Corner, you will find additional information that we think will interest you, including updates to the information presented in these publications, and discussion about the constantly changing technology Webmasters must stay involved in.

Finally, you will find a Message Board, which you can think of as a virtual study lounge. Here, you can interact with other Advanced Website Architecture Series readers, and share and discuss your projects.

Notes to the Student

This publication and the others in The Advanced Website Architecture Series are endorsed by the World Organization of Webmasters. The series is a training curriculum designed to provide aspiring Webmasters with the skills they need to perform in the marketplace. The skill sets included in The Advanced Website Architecture Series were initially collected and defined by this international trade association to create a set of core competencies for students, professionals, trainers, and employers to utilize.

Notes to the Instructor

Chances are that you are a pioneer in the education field whether you want to be one or not. Due to the explosive nature of the Internet's growth, very few Webmaster training programs are currently in existence. But while you read this, many colleges, community colleges, technical institutes, and corporate and commercial training environments are introducing this material into curriculums worldwide.

Chances are, however, that you are teaching new material in a new program. But don't fret, this publication and series are designed as a comprehensive introductory curriculum in this field. Students successfully completing this program of study will be fully prepared to assume the responsibilities of a Webmaster in the field or to engage in further training and certification in the Internet communications field.

Each chapter in this book is broken down into labs. All questions and projects have the answers and discussions associated with them. The labs and question/ answer formats used in this book provide excellent opportunities for group discussions and dialogue between students and instructors. Many answers and their discussions are abbreviated in this publication for space reasons. Any comments, ideas, or suggestions to this text and series will be would be greatly appreciated.

About the Authors

Michael Rees is currently an Associate Professor in Computer Science at Bond University in Australia, where he lives with his wife, Margot. He currently teaches and undertakes research on the Internet and the World Wide Web. In addition, he teaches programming with Java, JavaScript, and Visual Basic. He has over thirty years of teaching experience in programming, operating systems, human-computer interaction, electronic publishing, and the Internet.

Educated in the United Kingdom, Michael obtained his Bachelor degree in Mathematics at the University of Birmingham. At Oxford University, Pembroke College, he was one of the first students to gain a Postgraduate degree in Programming Languages. He gained his PhD at the University of Southampton in incremental language compiler design.

Coming to Australia in the mid-1980s, Michael established research groups in human-computer interaction at the University of Tasmania and at Bond University. He concentrated on user interface design for electronic mail systems and subsequently on collaborative systems such as chat systems and electronic meetings. This research work naturally utilized the World Wide Web, and from 1993, Michael has gained experience of user interface design in this medium. His work is published in many journal and conference papers.

He is co-author of two previous books (Text Processing with troff, with D. W. Barron, AW 1985, and Practical Compiling with Pascal-S, with D. J. Robson, AW 1988).

Andrew White has been involved in Web and multimedia development for over eight years. His accomplishments include the production of independent video for public access television, the development of Web-based action games, and the administration of an online newspaper. His current interests include technologies for the reliable and secure delivery of online content to wireless devices. He presently works as a software consultant in Seattle.

Bebo White is a member of the technical staff at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), the high-energy physics laboratory operated by Stanford University. He also holds academic appointments at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of San Francisco, and Hong Kong University.

He was fortunate enough to become involved with WWW development quite early while on sabbatical at CERN in 1989. Consequently, he was a part of the team instrumental in establishing the first non-European web site at SLAC in December 1991.

Bebo has authored and co-authored multiple books and articles. He has lectured and spoken internationally to academic and commercial audiences and has been particularly involved with two major international conference series: the Computing in High Energy Physics (CHEP) Conference and the International World Wide Web Conference. He served as Co-Chair of the Sixth International World Wide Web Conference, co-hosted by SLAC and Stanford University.

In 1996, Mr. White was added to the Micro Times 100 list of those making outstanding contributions to personal computing. He is a member of the IW3C2 (International World Wide Web Conference Committee), a fellow of the International World Wide Web Institute (IWWWI) and is cited by the World Wide Web Consortium.