A Review of Lynda Weinman’s <designing web graphics.3>, How to Prepare Images and Media for the Web
By Brook Hatch

A few words about my background in Graphic Design and HTML design are in order. I have a one-year certificate in Graphic Design for the Macintosh from the Community College of Denver with professional experience as a college newspaper production manager (CCD Community News) in 1997. I started designing web pages as a side project at Microsoft in 1998. I’ve been tinkering around with my web page and electronic art projects since then. I’ve had advanced classes in PhotoShop and desktop publishing. My first professional work with HTML was in administering the Student Originated Software Program web pages at The Evergreen State College (TESC) in 2000. My latest work with HTML has been in designing and implementing an ASP as part of a programming team also at TESC. Examples of my work are at http://www.brookula.com. Suffice it to say that I am not a rank amateur in the area covered by Lynda Weinman’s book.
That said, I found the book to be a well-written and concise introduction to web design and designing web graphics in particular. It’s not enough to know HTML unless you never use images. Let’s face it, people like their pretty pictures. Some of my favorite web sites are rich in visual imagery and interactive objects. Other web sites I go to for intellectual and professional content, but aesthetics provide for their readability. I can’t emphasize the importance of clean design often enough. I found her emphasis on designing with the end user in mind gratifying. Clean code is worthless to the crowd visiting a web site (useless to most of them).
My criterions for selecting an HTML editor are that it produces pure HTML and its interface doesn’t confuse me. The pure HTML issue is sticky. Producing HTML to current IETF specs can leave older browsers looking at broken pages. A cautious approach, which I heartily agree with, is specified in the book. Go for compatibility in all the navigation and core content objects. Use Flash, DHTML, movies, and other plug-ins in ways such that their failure still leaves the web site function if not as aesthetically appealing.
I found the section on storyboarding to be useful. Having a simple process flow for your users can eliminate confusion for the site visitor as well as aid in efficient implementation.
I’m sure I’ll be using the JavaScript for browser detection in the future. Compatibility is a huge problem in web work. I’ve been considering buying a Macintosh simply for testing web pages for this very reason. The URL provided to test compatibility will surely be helpful, but there’s nothing like seeing it with your own eyes. Speaking of eyes, I hadn’t given much thought until now to color blind and other vision impaired users. Designing my pages with high contrast is more important to me now that I’ve read what Weinman has to say about this issue. Despite using GIFs and JPGs constantly for years, it never occurred to me that an indexed color GIF couldn’t be made to match a JPG in color. This is a problem I was recently bedeviled with. To maximize efficient file sizes, it pays to remember GIF for line art and JPEG for photographic images. I almost never use width and height tags on my images. I had no idea that this makes the page load slower. I’m going to have to benchmark this one.
While I’m against frames, I found Weinman persuasive as to the design possibilities opened up by this controversial topic. It’s not necessary to show slider bars if you’re careful with the amount of content and the font size in a window. The tag for turning off scrolling could also be useful.
The section on fonts was helpful. Despite having used fonts in desktop publishing, I was unaware of how much better Verdana and Georgia look than Arial and Times. As a for-print designer, I’m in love with Helvetica, but Weinman is right, it’s digital equivalent is ugly.
It seems that HTML is just not built for positioning objects accurately. I’ve tried the single pixel stretch technique without success. I’m resigned to using &nbsp, <div>, and <blockquote>. I’ve noticed that Mozilla, Netscape, and Internet Explorer all show different spacing sizes with &nbsp. Tables are the way to go for most things. The <colspan> and <rowspan> tags will be useful. Absolute position with CSS is neat, but I’ve had problems with CSS and Netscape. 
I was disappointed to see nowhere in the book a discussion of absolute versus local links. This is a major and common snafu. There was also no mention of organizing the file locations in one’s site. A bit of organization can eliminate many headaches later. Also not mentioned is the absolutely vital practice of backing up files. I suppose it’s assumed. Another discrepancy was on Page 254 under Headings– “The heading tags always have to be in the HEAD part of an HTML file.” That is not true. Also missing was a discussion of forms and their associated tags. I suppose I can forgive the omission since this not a book about data interactivity in web pages.
Despite some omissions and a rare error or two, I found this book to be extremely useful. I am recommending this book to other student employees who are currently working with web pages.