Survey of Web Design Employment in My Area

A great deal of people prefers web developers (basically web designers) to have a strong knowledge of basic HTML and CSS (at least four years worth). There’s also a good pool of opportunities in Evansville, as well as places in Kentucky and other areas of Indiana that are only a few hours away. I noticed one ad from simplyhired.com mentioned being bilingual (English and Spanish), which means knowing more than one language or being willing to learn more than one language could be a good choice in the long run.

As for what the bls.gov website says, Information Security Analysts, Web Developers, and Computer Network Architects are all lumped together in one group. This does not necessarily mean that a person has to be all three at once though, since they provided separate descriptions on each job.

Basically, according them, “Web developers create websites to help firms have a public face” and require (in 2010) at least a Bachelor’s Degree as well as 1-5 years experience in a related occupation. In May of 2010, the medium annual wage was $75,660. And the Job Outlook is projected to grow 22 percent from 2010 to 2020, which is faster than the average for all occupations.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for "Search Engine Optimization", sometimes known as "Search Engine Optimizer".  If I were to compare it to something, it may be to car production and how some smaller companies produce the parts shipped to a main company for assembling. The same theory can be applied here. SEO provides ways for a website to be more findable, and gets paid for their part in the larger picture.

Though, I suppose a SEO isn't always needed. In fact, it seems to me that the SEO's job can be broken into sections and distributed to the web design team in a way that causes only an ounce more of effort rather than a wadful of cash. You see, the SEO's job is to create findability in a website. And to create findability the team already has to place a hand into the production.

That's why one does not necessarily need to pay a SEO. Instead, just a few extra steps from the team can eliminate the use of a SEO altogether and still make the website more findable.

Design, Usability, and Accessibility

Design is how the web page looks, how the person interacts with it, and just the overall presentation of the web page in question. Having the viewer be actively engaged, subtly, with the web page is good. And not having the website boggled with overly complex design choices (such as, say, 21 unneeded text colors or an extra image that serves no real purpose) to instead go for a simple, clean look is more appealing. Consistency is also important and gives the impression of sophistication, so it is important to have noted somewhere how the website is designed (like, say, how many pixels of padding is used and where).

Usability is the practical side of the website. This is what makes good links good, and makes content clear and concise. If a website were to be compared to a business, the logo and interior decoration would be the design of the business. The usability of the business would be the employees, the contracts, and the mannerisms of the place. Usability can determine about how trustworthy a website is, and so being clear with things such as a link navigation is important.

Accessibility is the distributing part of a website. For a business, this would be the ramps and braille system that would be found throughout the building for the handicapped people. A website isn't used just by the perfectly healthy, in fact those who are blind or have paralysis can use this technology too, if the website is coordinated just right for their use. That is why some extra time should be used in making sure a website is easy for all people to use.

Photoshop Web Design Layout Tutorials Critique

Photoshop Tutorial 1 - Webstudio Layout Design:  Basically, I enjoy how step-by-step this one is. I can also see myself tweaking it for my own personal use just by changing colors or typefaces or even changing the stars into a different stamp upon my own preference. It's a bit lengthy, though... But well worth it for someone who needs such instructions.

Photoshop Tutorial 2 - Design a Cartoon Grundge Web Site Layout:  Okay, I'm not being biased despite the fact I completely love Anime/Manga (which is the Japanese version of Cartoons/Comics)! I like the torn paper look, and hey... Instead of the 3 images of the bottom being of random pictures... I can see three of my best work projects there. And the paper curling with tape on it that shows a website? Logo could always fit there. A few of those steps look to be a daunting doozy, though.

Photoshop Tutorial 3 - Create a Dark Themed Web Design from Scratch:  This one was choosen because it was dark and girly-cute. Kind of how I like it. I also like how this person points out the main points of interest, and notes keeping a color scheme consistant. This sort of website may be more of a personal blog or something similar to how Swiss Miss keeps a blog over designs and quotes and videos and such that tickle her fancy.

As a side note: A good amount of these tutorials did not work, which served to agitate me as some of them I was looking forward to learning about.

Site Development Process and My Role In It

A site begins when a client arrives to the web design team with the job. Research is made, determining the purpose of the website which dictates what sort of “look” is to be made. The creative section of the design team comes up with an engaging idea, and the other sections tweak that idea so that it would flow more and have copyrights. This concept design is presented as a demonstration in which the client either accepts or denies. Until they get the okay, the website won’t be on the World Wide Web anytime soon.

Or, at least this is the “nutshell” idea behind how a website process works.

Obviously, the part I seem drawn to the most is the creative part. The concept of creating something from almost nothing is the same as watching a babe take its first steps and grow further into sprinting about and frolicking happily. It’s a moment swelling in pride and accomplishment, and it touches the artistic side of me I indulge upon heavily.

This doesn’t mean, however, that I dislike the other jobs within the process. Copyrighting a website could be fun in finding all the little blind spots in legalizing, or creating a hierarchy would be interesting when planning how to get a shaky start into silky end. In fact, I could also see myself enjoying the riddling thrill of combining the design with the abstract language of web-coding.

But, I realize the frustration in web-coding may cause me to be more disruptive than productive. Being the person who dreams up colors and type to shapes and meaning is more suited for the air-headed me who daydreams of everything under the sun.

History of the Internet

In the beginning about 50 years ago, there was the computer. It was a massive, hulking mass of machinery stored within a housing structure with its own cooling processes. At this point, the bland and bulky technologic wonder could only complete one task at a time. This was called “Batch Processing”.

Now, with the main computer being kept in a cooling drum, developers couldn’t use the computer and called in for help. Specialists worked in an effort to connect to the main source and programming was created with a great deal of bugs, wasted time, and frustrated cries.

Finally, though, a remote connection was made and “Time Sharing” began to take form. Time sharing was much like a tree, where the main computer acted as a trunk with many smaller stations branching out.

Time marches on, and Sputnik was launched. The impact of Russian success of an unmanned satellite in space caused the Americans to be on panic as this was during the Cold War. What did Americans do in response? Create the “Defense Advance Research Project” of course. Due to the need of convenience, the “Arpanet” was born.

This was one of the four main cornerstone concepts of how the internet came to be.

Also in America, in due part thanks to the Rand Corporation, the military also came to develop a key concept of the history of the internet. In England, a commercial use was created by the National Physical Laboratory. Because of the scientific research of Cyclades, France had a hand in the foundation to modern internet.

But let us begin once again with the Arpanet. This concept created an “Interface Message Processor” to be used instead of the “Mainframe” computer. Combining these IMPs, a subnet was crafted, and information was shared between these IMPs while the Mainframe gathered and executed procedures.

In England, “Packet-switching” was born. Due to the commercial usage of the raw connections of networking, files were broken up and sent to later be pieced together again at the receiving end. Doing this, congestion of data streaming was minimal.

Following this path was the American military. During this time, missiles were found in Cuba, and the threat of hostile firing created a need for something other than the centralized network using long-range radio waves created at the moment. Thus, a distributed network with many nodes was born.

Finally, was France’s contribution to the internet. Cyclades not only coined the term “inter-net”, but also connected the nodes of many networks. They also founded a way to send data directly to the receiver, thus cutting time even more.

Thanks to the contributions of these four organizations, phone companies made use of their work and the internet was up and running, becoming the wonder it is today.

Goals for this class

If one were to create goals for his or her life, those little milestones would act as a temporary finishing lines and pick-me-ups for times work seemed unbearable and the world seemed against what one wanted.

Having said that, ultimately my goal is to leave the class with a grade to be proud of. But more than that, my goal first and foremost is to learn to not be frustrated with the coding when it doesn't work how I want it to. I already view the process of creating webpages fun, like a puzzle game to crack down upon and figure out. So of course the one thing I don't want to happen, would be to view something enjoyable as something to loathe.

Another bit of hope, would be that my luck with computers play nice. Thankfully it hasn't been bad recently, but there are some accounts where a computer I work on suddenly have problems with it. Blue screens, freezings, even crashing a whole classroom of computers I believe has happened before. Is it no wonder I wish for these computers to be safe if I was in the midst of a complex string of formatting?

As for any fears of nervousness of the internet itself, at this stage of the class I do not see anything such as that. I live in the generation which uses the internet often, if not excessive to the point of obsession. So, I suspect that is why I don't see the internet as some horrid boogeyman lurking in the unknown. And to be truthful, it's not the internet that needs to be feared. It's the people who use the internet that may be fearful...