Web Design Annotated Bibliography

The web is a huge publishing medium filled with millions of pages dedicated to almost any topic imaginable. This is because almost anyone with access to the Internet can create and publish content. While there are millions of published web pages, an exact number is not available because there is no central agency that keeps these statistics (Markel, 2007). Since the web is such an important publishing medium for organizations, professionals should understand the basics of designing and creating a web site (Markel, 2007).

The accelerated growth of the World Wide Web has turned the Internet into an immense information space with diverse and often poorly organized content (Holscher & Gerhard, 2000). At its inception, the Web was all about information, focusing mostly on content and less on visual design (Lynch & Horton, 2001). Designers began stressing the value of aesthetics and began creating better looking, yet idiosyncratic, web sites. This led to the emergence of sites with large graphics, complex layouts, and nonstandard coding (Lynch & Horton, 2001).

The most important part of designing any web site is defining goals. Without a clearly stated mission and objectives, theproject will drift and lose focus. Careful planning and clear purpose are the keys to successful web site design (Lynch &Horton, 2001). This bibliography is a list of resources for web designers seeking materials discussing web design principles.

Research shows that visual artists gather information in a variety of ways from various sources. A survey of South Africanartists reveals independent catalog and OPAC searching is the most preferred method (Van Zijl & Gericke, 2001). Since thismethod is most preferred, art librarians should make sure artists are familiar with the resources available to them by promoting and facilitating library instruction (Van Zijl & Gericke, 2001). The next most popular methods are browsing library stacks and asking a librarian for assistance. Surprisingly, following up citations found in bibliographies placed ahead of using the Internet in this study (Van Zijl & Gericke, 2001). Very few of the artists surveyed found value in seeking information from colleagues or electronic lists and bulletin boards.

Another study conducted shows women in information technology professionals employ one of four methods to seek and gather information from the Web: formal searching, informal searching, undirected viewing, and conditioned viewing (Choo & Marton, 2003). Formal searching is systematic gathering of information about a topic following some method or procedure. Information gathered through this method is typically used for policy or decision making. Informal searching is a focused search on a topic, but a good-enough search is often satisfactory. Knowledge of topic is increased within narrow boundaries. Undirected viewing involves broadly scanning resources and taking advantage of what’s easily accessible. This is usually serendipitous searching. Most often, the searcher begins at a general information site, finds topics of interest, and follows links to more information on those topics. Conditioned viewing involves browsing pre-selected sources on pre-specified topics of interest. The information gathered through this method is used to increase knowledge about topics of interest. Searchers usually return to these resources through bookmarking.

During the 1986 Art Libraries Society of North America conference, a session entitled “What Do Artists Read?” addressed the reading habits of people with artistic personalities. Discussion revealed that artists’ reading habits are highly idiosyncratic ansd diverse (Hemming, 2007). After three hours of discussion, almost the only items which the panelists cited in common were comic books and the New York Times (Ferguson, 1986). Panelist also claimed to read the art press only occasionally, mainly to read about the work of their friends or themselves, not to get information (Ferguson, 1986). The panel discussion reinforces the preference of interest-specific reading.

A study of Internet experts shows they have a higher competence for Web searching. While the skills needed for general browsing seem to be present in users after only minimal training, considerably more experience is required for query-based searching and intersite navigation (Holscher & Gerhard, 2000). Experienced users use search engines regularly for diverse information needs, so it is reasonable to assume that they will develop particular expert knowledge in mastering these more complex services. (Holscher & Gerhard, 2000)