With your tool set in place, it is now time to start work. The design process is covered in more detail in a later lesson, but a brief outline is supplied here for completeness.

Think about what the finished site will look like before you start doing anything. Bear in mind that most people who will access your site will do so through a modem. Even with the advances made in modem technology over the last few years, the maximum download speed is still only about 6.8kb per second on a 56k modem. With traffic on the Internet, this is normally a theoretical upper limit, with real world figures nearer 5kb per second. Bearing this in mind, this puts a practical upper limit on the size of your pages.

If you want people to look at your web page, it should load in a maximum of about 10 seconds, otherwise the browser will probably browse somewhere else. The browser may not have upgraded to a 56k modem, so we tend to work on the assumption of a 28.8k modem, with a connection running at 70% efficiency. This gives a working figure for the maximum page size of 25kb. This includes all of the text in the .htm file, and any other files the .htm file will call, usually graphics files. A site which is overloaded with graphics can easily exceed this 25kb limit

Think about how people will navigate around the site, and make the navigation easy to use, obvious and consistent around the site.

Think about your image, as this will be presented through the web pages. For a consistent style through the site, think about making a template of the bits that won’t change, and modifying the bits that do.

Think about simple things like colour combinations and typeface. Pale yellow text on a white background is very difficult to read, and certain fonts look good on paper, but are difficult to read on the screen.

Above all, think about what you have to say. A site with no worthwhile content that looks visually stunning, is still worthless after the user has stopped being dazzled.

The build process uses a number of different techniques, most of which will appear as later lessons. The high level approach to the build process falls into a number of categories. These are build, test and review.

There are a number of variables to think about during the build phase, the most important being web browser (both manufacturer and version) and screen size. Web sites look different in different browsers, and different version of the same browsers support different HTML tags. All this needs to be taken into consideration during the build phase, so that the largest cross section of users can see what you have to say.

Once a site is complete, it should be tested, preferably on a fully functioning web server. Test everything you can think of, but the bare minimum should include a test of every link in the site, check that all images have loaded, check the spelling on all of your pages, and make sure the page actually looks as intended.

The last phase is review. Review the site as a whole on a regular basis, add new material as often as practical, and remove out of date information in a timely fashion, even if there is nothing to replace it with.

If you feel the design is not working for you, review that too. Make any changes based on improvements in technology, or improvements in your own knowledge. Try to avoid using technology for the sake of it, it only detracts from the message your site is trying to deliver.

For more in depth information on design and build, look at some of the later lessons.