USABILITY AND DESIGN of websites

• Do:
• Use ALT tags for all graphics, especially navigation graphics.
• Use black text on white background whenever possible for optimal legibility.
• Use either plain-color backgrounds or extremely subtle background patterns.
• Make sure text is in a printable color (not white).
• Place navigation in a consistent location on each page of your website.
• Use a familiar location for navigation bars.
• Keep the design from scrolling horizontally.
• Use one axis of symmetry for centered text on a page.
• Encourage scrolling by splitting an image at the fold.
• Don't:
• Allow ALT tags to get clipped (especially an issue for small, fixed width images).
• Display static text in blue or underlined.
• Use boldface or ALL CAPS for long pieces of text. These slow down reading.
• Leave too much white space--reduces scannability.
• Make the user scroll to find critical information, especially transaction buttons and navigation links.
• Use horizontal rules to separate chunks of content.
• Alternate too frequently between centered text and left-aligned text. Most text should be left-aligned.
• Fix pages at larger than 800 x 600 pixels. Larger pages may force users to scroll horizontally.

Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design

1. Bad Search

2. PDF Files for Online Reading

Users hate coming across a PDF file while browsing, because it breaks their flow. Even simple things like printing or saving documents are difficult because standard browser commands don't work. Layouts are often optimized for a sheet of paper, which rarely matches the size of the user's browser window. Bye-bye smooth scrolling. Hello tiny fonts.

3. Not Changing the Color of Visited Links

A good grasp of past navigation helps you understand your current location, since it's the culmination of your journey. Knowing your past and present locations in turn makes it easier to decide where to go next. Links are a key factor in this navigation process.

4. Non-Scannable Text

A wall of text is deadly for an interactive experience. Intimidating. Boring. Painful to read.

5. Fixed Font Size

CSS style sheets unfortunately give websites the power to disable a Web browser's "change font size" button and specify a fixed font size. About 95% of the time, this fixed size is tiny, reducing readability significantly for most people over the age of 40.

6. Page Titles With Low Search Engine Visibility

Search is the most important way users discover websites. Search is also one of the most important ways users find their way around individual websites. The humble page title is your main tool to attract new visitors from search listings and to help your existing users to locate the specific pages that they need.

7. Anything That Looks Like an Advertisement

Selective attention is very powerful, and Web users have learned to stop paying attention to any ads that get in the way of their goal-driven navigation. (The main exception being text-only search-engine ads.)

Unfortunately, users also ignore legitimate design elements that look like prevalent forms of advertising. After all, when you ignore something, you don't study it in detail to find out what it is.

Therefore, it is best to avoid any designs that look like advertisements. The exact implications of this guideline will vary with new forms of ads; currently follow these rules:

• banner blindness means that users never fixate their eyes on anything that looks like a banner ad due to shape or position on the page
• animation avoidance makes users ignore areas with blinking or flashing text or other aggressive animations
• pop-up purges mean that users close pop-up windoids before they have even fully rendered; sometimes with great viciousness (a sort of getting-back-at-GeoCities triumph).

8. Violating Design Conventions

Consistency is one of the most powerful usability principles: when things always behave the same, users don't have to worry about what will happen. Instead, they know what will happen based on earlier experience. Every time you release an apple over Sir Isaac Newton, it will drop on his head. That's good.

The more users' expectations prove right, the more they will feel in control of the system and the more they will like it. And the more the system breaks users' expectations, the more they will feel insecure. Oops, maybe if I let go of this apple, it will turn into a tomato and jump a mile into the sky.

Jakob's Law of the Web User Experience states that "users spend most of their time on otherwebsites."

This means that they form their expectations for your site based on what's commonly done on most other sites. If you deviate, your site will be harder to use and users will leave.

9. Opening New Browser Windows

Opening up new browser windows is like a vacuum cleaner sales person who starts a visit by emptying an ash tray on the customer's carpet. Don't pollute my screen with any more windows, thanks (particularly since current operating systems have miserable window management).

10. Not Answering Users' Questions

Users are highly goal-driven on the Web. They visit sites because there's something they want to accomplish -- maybe even buy your product. The ultimate failure of a website is to fail to provide the information users are looking for.

web design conventions

One of the key skills for designing effectively is appreciating current conventions, and applying them for maximum benefit.

What design conventions are

They might be colours, shapes, patterns, layouts, font styles that have, over time, come to connote things that they don't actually say.

There are literally hundreds of web conventions that you'd recognise. Some simple examples you'll find on the web include:

• In many parts of the world, a yellow triangle on a road sign means 'warning'. This has crossed over to become the convention in software.
• An area of screen that looks like a button (rectangular and raised with a bevelled edge) will conventionally perform an action when clicked with the mouse. This mimics buttons on physical devices, such as radios, television sets and computers. By taking on the appearance of a push-button, the item borrows the user's primal association: "button > I can push > makes something happen".
• Early web browsers rendered text hyperlinks in blue, underlined format. This convention has endured for a decade, even though it is not the easiest format to read.
• If you want to go to a web site's home page, you'll look first at the top-left of the screen for a logo or a button with the word "Home" on it. No-one told you to do this, you've learnt from experience.
• If you see A set of | Words | Separated by | Little vertical lines at the bottom of a web page, you assume that they are a set of general links within the web site you're on. The only reason that should be the case is that you've learnt the convention from other sites.

How they work

The reason why conventions work is also the reason why they're so valuable: they're visual shortcuts, capable of conveying complex meanings with the simplest visual information. A red circle around an exclamation mark takes far less mental work to decode than the word, "Warning". They're great because they do your for you, saving you a lot of time and effort.

Does that mean you should always use a convention where one exists? No! Often, you might choose not to use a convention.

They are like rules, and, like the best rules, they can be broken or bent. The trick for web designers is to know when going against an established convention will be detrimental to a design's function, and when it needs to be re-interpreted. As with any rule system, you have to understand the rules in order to choose how to follow them. It's also very important to avoid using a design that is a convention, in the wrong context.

Taking the web examples above:

• I'm working with a client on a web site that at one point displays a yellow warning triangle when giving the user some information. However, the info isn't a warning, it's more of a soft, did-you-know type of alert. This is misleading.
• Another web interface I'm redesigning uses bevelled buttons in the top toolbar. The toolbar also shows today's date. To maintain consistency, the designer has placed the date in a bevelled area. Although it's clearly just a date, people try to click on it, because it says, "Me button > push me > something happen". I have recommended doing away with the date altogether, keeping the toolbar just for links.
• If blue text is used anywhere on a web page, someone will try to click on it. If it's not a hyperlink, that will be a unnecessary, slightly disconcerting experience.
• In the West, the logo that describes the entire web site should reside at the top-left of every page. This is where people look to be reminded where they are, and to navigate upwards. If the logo is situated anywhere else, it takes more work on behalf of the designer and user to establish its authority.

mission statement

WHAM are in a fortunate position. Its newspaper covers a lively patch of west hampstead teeming with hard news stories, including drugs, crime, transport and politics. The catchment area is home to numerous artists and celebrities who live side by side with some of the countries most deprived. 

The  title is widely respected,  renowned for writing cutting-edge stories that make the world of journalism sit up and take notice. From Channel 4 and Al-Jazeera to the quality nationals, the WHAM name is known and admired. 

Getting used to using software - Photoshop

Article 3

TFL is 'rude and unresponsive' 

Transport for London has been branded a rude and unresponsive anti-resident organization by the liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for Hampstead and Kilburn. 

Ed Fordman has spoken out about the ongoing Overground and Jubilee line closures. 

He said: "I think the way TFL is conducting itself is near offensive and a disgrace. This is a major issue for residents and traders and TFL has failed to respond in any way. The closures have gone on too long and unexplained and uncommunicated."

WEST Hampstead traders have slammed the ongoing weekend closure of the Jubilee line, saying it is putting them out of business.

The upgrade of the line, which also affects Swiss Cottage, has seen frequent closures of huge swathes of the line on most weekends.

Traders and restaurant owners in West Hampstead say they cannot cope with any more pressure given the current economic climate.

Siba Kannan, from Elephant Walk restaurant, said: "It has been going on for months and it is definitely affecting West End Lane and the businesses here. This is a destination place at the weekend and the closures are making it very difficult for us. Businesses have been suffering, especially restaurants and bars because we are not getting as many customers - it is killing off trade.

"It has been going since for months and it is not on. Given the current economic climate this is not helping us at all - it is making it worse. We are all dying a silent death here and it is very concerning. There are hundreds of people who are being affected."

A TFL spokes woman said "Once the Jubilee line upgrade is completed customers will benefit from faster journeys and an increase in capacity of 33 percent. Our contractor tube lines in responsible for installing new signaling which will result in a more reliable service fro Londoners. The only way that we can do this is to close the line in part or full at quieter times such as weekends.

Article 2

West Hampstead Streets Cordoned Off Over Firearms

Police swarmed West Hampstead this week after two incidents believed to have involved firearms. 

Glady's Road was cordoned off by police at around 4pm after repots of an attempted robbery of a scooter driver by youths armed with hand guns. 

And at the same time part of West End Lane, in between the Thameslink and Overground stations, was also cordoned off after police gave a chase to two youths, one of whom is believed to have been carrying a gun. .

According to witnesses the youths dumped the car they were in outside the post office and fled on foot from the police who are believed to be pursuing them in an unmarked car. 

One of the youths is believed to have run into West Hampstead underground station and jumped over the live tube tracks to try and get away. 

The police have so far not confirmed the two incidents are connected. WHAM understands several arrets have been made in connection with the two incidents.   

Articles which I used in newspaper

HUNT FOR MISSING WEST HAMPSTEAD MAN

The family and friends of a west Hampstead man arrive in a desperate search to find him after he went missing 5 days ago.

John Regan, 30, was last seen outside The Alice Bar on West End Lane around mid-night last Wednesday evening.

Mr. Regan's family are currently working with the police to try and trace his last known moments.

This week they were checking CCTV tapes from around West Hampstead and Fortune Green to determine the direction he headed in after The Alice Bar.

Mr. Regan's brother Paul is appealing for anyone who may have seen John to come forward.

He said ' This is completely out of character for John. He has no reason to go missing and this is completely unexpected. We are extremely worried about him and urge anyone who knows anything about his whereabouts to contact West Hampstead Police on 0300 123 1212.

John is 5ft 10ins with cropped brown hair and light blue eyes. He was last seen walking down West End lane at around 1.15am and then headed through Fortune Green where he turned right towards his home.

He was wearing light blue jeans and a dark blue jumper with a large pink skull motif.

WHO WHAT WEAR?

This Easter with spring almost upon us, the fashionistas seem to have abandoned their commitment to washed-out pastels in favour of more vibrant, saturated colour. From thigh-high to knicker-skimming, shorts are a new season must-buy. The best-dressed people will be re-working denim into rompers, dresses and sexy high-heeled strappy shoes for spring. The edgiest looks feature head-to-toe denim: previously a fashion no-no.

Designers such as Prada, Williamson and McCartney are using white, loose fitting tops as the perfect blank canvas on which to project ourselves whilst other designers ride the body-con trend with skintight pieces in high-tech fabrics, neon shades or scuba black.

"A summer essential - wear your shorts rolled up at the hem, with a slouchy T-shirt, blazer and rocking ankle boosta," says Vogue's Miranda Almond. Heavy netted tuille skirts in effervescent spring colours made a welcome return (as shown right). Shorts are summer's best way to show off legs. For work, think tailored cuts - as seen at DKNY, Hermès and Hussein Chalayan. Leather shorts were a strong trend - in black, tan or brown. For the weekend, denim and safari styles rule. After dark, take your cue from Prada, Matthew Williamson, Valentino and MaxMara, who all showed luxe versions for the cocktail hour.

With the emphasis on the leg that autumn/winter gave us with all those over-the-knee boots, we're still focusing on the legs with a variety of styles of shorts for summer. Seek out beautiful knot detailing and ice-cream colours.

Army jackets, sharp-cut military jackets and olive green were all over the runway for Spring 2010. This is a trend that works for so many women, and it's as easy to buy into as adding a pair of soft utility pants or khaki camp shirt into your wardrobe. The key to keeping military looking feminine is to choose crisp-fitting shirts and jackets: it gives it more of a boy-meets-girl look than a sloppy army surplus look. Although camo is around, it's really the khakis and olives that look freshest. Eye-popping heights and elaborate details made their way down the runway on the feet of models around the world. The most dramatic styles were cage shoes, wedges and ankle boots.

Statement shoes have been one of the most significant trends going for seasons. Even pant lengths are being made to show off great shoes (cropped slim pants are my favorite way to show off amazing shoes.) Cage shoes are an update on the gladiator: they feature a cage-like effect made with straps and can either be casual or dress, high-heel or flat. Wedges - a warm-weather favorite - are updated with wooden heels and every fabric and detail available. Booties and ankle boots are still a very strong look and work well with leggings and shorter skirts.

Research - Local Newspaper stories

Ham&High Local stories  WhenTown Hall was invaded by the Purple Poets Thank you to everyone who passed on the news of the West Euston Time Bank Purple Poets Reading Party on October 8. I think this is the first time the Camden Town Hall has been used to celebrate the National Poetry Day, and the Purple Poets (and new-found... » MORE History of Hampstead graveyard has been well-documented I was astounded at the ignorance displayed with the event at Hampstead parish churchyard last week (Legendary artists in line for gravestone revamp, H&H October 15). The Heritage Lottery-funded project was not given to erect gravestones in memory of ar... » MORE How Archway Park could become an ecology centre During the day Archway Park can be a very peaceful haven but nocturnally it has become a place of menacing shadows and aggressive behaviour since its sequestration from Henfield Close. This has led to the loss of natural surveillance and the unwelcome pr... » MORE Boris goes all bendy on the buses IT was really depressing news to hear that Boris Johnson has announced that some public transport fares in London will be raised by almost 13 per cent from January. London s tube and buses are all absolutely packed throughout the day. Many low income fami... » MORE POSTAL STRIKE: We must not allow charities to suffer THE POST OFFICE has been in disarray and decline for a number of years. This once proud national treasure has been systematically reduced to a shadow of its former self by a management that is plainly less interested in the welfare of its workers and its... » MORE Local studies bound to suffer in library shake-up The recommendations to be made to Camden Council regarding the staff of the local studies and archives centre at Holborn have been published on the internet. They represent an improvement on the previous proposals in that one senior post is saved after n... » MORE This kindness of strangers is deeply heartening May I through the pages of the Ham&High thank the three very kind people who helped me following my argument with the pavement at the junction of Jackson s Lane and Archway Road on Wednesday, October 14 at 4.20pm. One man and two women helped me up, duste... » MORE

Planning - Rough Flat Plan

This image is a rough flat plan of a conventional front page. I have drawn this so i can gain an understanding of a front page local newspaper. Now, I can make my own with my own stories, images and texts to suit my target audience.

Research for flat plan

These are two local newspapers in my area,The Camden New Journal and The Ham & High. I have annotated them to figure out the the conventions of a front page of a local newspaper.

The common values included in both are:

• The mast head
• The splash
• Photograph with caption
• Headline
• Puffs
• Logo
• Display Advertisements
• The lure

Above, is a flat plan of the front page, back page and double page of a local newspaper. I have chosen to to look at the front and back pages as i think they have the most interesting layout and use a variety of text, images and adverts. However, I also wanted to look into how to make a double spread because even if i don't choose to make my own I have the knowledge to be able to change my mind if I want to, and also it gives me the background knowledge of what would be in my newspaper if I was to make a full one.