Skills Needed For Web Design -Reply

Subject: Skills Needed For Web Design -Reply
From: Bill Sullivan <bsullivan -at- SMTPLINK -dot- DELTECPOWER -dot- COM>
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 13:45:35 -0700

>>I want to learn more about the nitty gritty stuff -- Java, CGI
sripting, etc. Where do I begin? Can I learn this from a book or do I
need to take a class? Can I jump right into or do I have to go back to
programming 101 (maybe take a class in C, then another in C++, and
THEN a class in Java...).

I don't know that this is what you were looking for, but Karen A.
Schriver in "Dynamics in Document Design" by Karen A. Schriver
(Wiley) has some words that deserve to be considered by any technical
writer who takes up Web page work.

On page 390, Schriver describes in considerable detail a usability
study of a particular web site. On pp. 406-407, she concludes her
description with the following comment:

"At the risk of repeating myself, too much time in document design
circles is being spent arguing over the details of HTML code, GIFs,
JPEGs, frames, browsers, and so on. Although anyone designing on the
Web must know these things, they are not the most important thing for
document design professionals to worry about. It's the interplay of
prose and graphics that ought to concern us."

I don't know if this applies to you personally, but I think Shriver's
words should constitute a rather useful thought for anybody so caught
up in Web work that he or she forgets the importance of presenting the
story properly.

Bill Sullivan
bsullivan -at- deltecpower -dot- com
San Diego, California

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