Week 3

This week I looked at design principles in the context of different websites. For example how websites that offer different information or services from one another have different layouts and navigation (sometimes removing aspects completely).

To help me put websites in some kind of context I looked around at "help" websites that offer pointers to make a good website.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9605.html

This website has a list of the "Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design". Where it lists common errors designers make in their designs, such as bad search functions or not answering user questions. These negative points are a good set of pointers to make sure designers make a usable site.

I also did some research into Internet on TV, and discovered that this technology is somewhat obsolete.

However, the technology now carrying on from what the TV brought is now using "Media Center" PCs as TVs.



These Media Center PCs connect to TV sets and allow the user to seamlessly navigate between their PC and TV. This allows users to view full desktop standard web pages with the click of a button. This is not very popular at the moment, but it is going to be the next step in Internet on TV. However with all that being said, the old TV Internet should not be ignored when developing a relevant web site.

I also did some further research into the mobile web in the form of hands on experimentation (to get an idea of the restrictions mobiles have). I used a modern phone to navigate to web pages that weren't even developed for the mobile browser successfully, and could perform most functions (even view flash videos from YouTube and see PHP forms)