Section One: A Prelude

A Visual Glossary

Visual explanations of terms we use in this book that you should know

Clipart, Stock Images, and Groovy Fonts

Taking advantage of stock stuff in creating design, buttons, animations, and other elements on a web page

Spiff up Your Photographs

Some ideas and tips on juicing up your photographs to enhance your web pages

It's Horizontal World

A reminder that our monitors create a horizontal design space, which takes a little more thought to design within

Section Two: Plan that Site

Design is Not the First Step

In fact, you have lots of work to do before you ever open your web authoring software, including developing your client relationship

Enhanced Functionality

Consider these options for your web site before you present a proposal to the client

Organizing Your Content

Especially on large and complex sites, developing your site architecture and creating a site map is indispensable

Organizing the Work Flow

From start to finish, how the work flows on a large project

The Design and Development Process

From thumbnails, sketches, and comps to presentation and approval

Test Your Web Sites

Tips for testing your site so you and your clients will have fewer surprises when it's posted

Web Site Work is Never Done

Techniques to ensure your site will be found by automated search engines, plus a few tips about maintenance

Section Three: Idea Source

Slicing and Dicing

Break out of the HTML box by designing visually, then slicing the image into pieces and reconstructing within a table

Something about Backgrounds

Commonsense approaches to backgrounds, including how to make large, single-image background, edge images, and hybrid colors

Elegant Navigation

The goals of persistent navigation, plus tips on how to analyze a navigation system for usability

Button Button

Lots of ideas for buttons, including how to create readable small type on them

Rollovers and Image Swaps

Examples of clever uses of these techniques and tips on creating them

Site Index and Searches

The importance of a site index page or a search feature, and how to go about installing a search feature

HTML Fonts

Making the HTML text as readable as possible for all viewers, plus a bit about dynamic fonts

Cascading Style Sheets

What are cascading style sheets, when would you use them, and how do you use them

Dynamic Pages

An introduction to the sorts of technologies necessary to provide a dynamic user experience and also to control content dynamically (on-the-fly)

Frames

The good, the bad, and the ugly about frames

Animated GIFs

Tips on using animated GIFs without annoying your viewers, plus how to make them smaller in file size so they load faster

Motion Graphics

An overview of Flash and motion graphics

Forms Control

Techniques for creating not only good-looking, but functional forms

Virtual Last Chapter

An introduction to the web site that supports this book with live examples of the sites and techniques we featured throughout

The End Matters Index and colophon