Design for web- introduction to web

In todays session we briefly looked at the background of web and the basic terminology used.

History
In 1991 Sir Tim Berners-Lee, a british scientist working at CERN in Switzerland, created the internet to 'link and access information of various kinds as a web of nodes in which the user can browse at will' The internet was initially a response to a problem of sharing work and information across a large lab. Steve Jobs created the worlds first web server at CERN (a NeXT computer that served as host)

In 1992 the first ever image was uploaded to the internet, the image was of a CERN all lady pop group

Terminology

Browser is the software that formats the code
URL uniform resource locater (web adress)
HTTP hyper text transfer protocol
HTML hyper text markup language
CSS cascading style sheets
FTP files transfer protocol
CMS content management system

We then looked at a couple of important terminologies in more depth including skeuomorphism, this is a word used for a piece of design that is made to look like an imitation of something that it isn't. For example when turning a page on an iBook, instead of going straight to the next page it virtually imitates the turning of a page.

We also discussed what responsive design was, responsive design can also be referred to as 'reactive design', it responds to a variety of media, screens of different sizes by reshuffling automatically. This concept was created by Ethan Marcotte.

Before designing a website one should always ask 'what's the point'

what is the purpose of the website?
who are the target audience?
What does the target audience need from the website?

Books:

HTML & CSS, Design and Build Websites
Design for Non-Profit Organisations - Massimo Vignelli
Scratching The Surface - Erik Spiekermann

Websites:

www.awwwards.com
www.piccsy.com/everything-design
www.aisleone.com
www.fivesimplesteps.com

As a group we then discussed the first thing that came into our head when we showed a website homepage as it takes around 2.5 seconds for our minds to decided on a website after initially seeing it.

Apple