Web Pages That Suck: Learn Good Design by Looking at Bad Design

Describes with humor ways to design, build, and maintain effective Web sites, including criticism of Web sites the authors feel are badly designed

Unless you're abnormally gifted, the best way to learn a craft thoroughly is to learn not only its central tenets but also its pitfalls. Here, authors Vincent Flanders and Michael Willis teach you good Web design by pointing out ugly, misguided, and confusing sites--any site that fails to deliver good graphics and clear, well-focused content. As the authors show you all sorts of corporate and personal pages, they help you determine your target audience, design your site and its navigational elements and content, and solve problems concerning graphics and text. You also learn about using tables versus frames and get an introduction to hot technologies such as plug-ins, cascading style sheets, XML, databases, VRML, Java, streaming video and audio, videoconferencing, and chat. Finally, the authors address maintenance and marketing issues, teaching you how to set up an appropriate domain name, update your site, register your site with search engines and directories, and use reciprocal links and banner ads. The authors address cross-platform issues and Netscape/Microsoft incompatibility issues where appropriate. This is a full-color book, with enthusiastic, amusing writing as well as helpful screen shots and tips on Web-design software. The companion hybrid CD-ROM includes utilities for creating GIF animations, style sheets, and HTML pages and for creating, compressing, and optimizing Web graphics.