Information Technology Systems & Services
About the Web Design Reference Site
Purpose
The learning goal of this site to serve as an educational resource to instruction in standards based web design and development. It is a learning source for those engaged in projects that require construction of web sites. It also serves as an educational reference for advanced web designers who want to learn standards based techniques, theory and best practices or for those who want to refresh their knowledge.
This site is dedicated to providing knowledge of web design and development. It advocates accessibility, usability, web standards and many related topics by:
- Imparting news and information on making web sites obtainable and functional to largest possible audience.
- Providing topical news and information for designing web sites that are effective, efficient, engaging, error tolerant and easy to learn.
- Distributing pertinent news and information of web design and development theory and methods.
Accessibility, Usability and Web Standards
We are committed to enhancing the accessibility and usability of this site for everyone and following web standards. For details visit our accessibility statement.
Site Design, Development, Content and Maintenance
- By Laura L. Carlson
- Detailed in Ten questions for Laura Carlson interview
Encouragement and Support
- By the ITSS WWWTeam
Inspiration
- Bert Bos and Hakon Wium Lie, creators of CSS
- D. Keith Robinson, writer, designer specializing in user-centered, web standards-based design
- Dan Cederholm, web designer, author specializing in web standards
- Dave Raggett, responsible for lots of HTML stuff and Tidy
- Dave Shea, the "cultivator of the css Zen Garden. A graphic designer by trade, he writes about all things web for his daily weblog"
- Douglas Bowman, an influential designer whose highly publicized and hugely successful redesigns of sites like Blogger, Wired News, and Adaptive Path have pushed him to the forefront of standards-compliant web design
- Eric A. Meyer, an internationally recognized expert on the subjects of HTML, CSS, and Web standards. One of my first CSS teachers
- Jeffrey Zeldman, "internationally known web designer and author, architect of the web standards movement, and creator of some of the medium's best-known brands"
- Joe Clark, accessibility expert and dubbed 'the king of closed captions'
- Kynn Bartlett, leading instructor and consultant in the field of web accessibility. Kynn is a former member of the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines working group, founder of the HTML Writers Guild's Accessible Web Authoring Resources and Education Center, and is on the advisory board of the International Center for Disability Resources on the Internet. He was my first web accessibility teacher
- Russ Weakley, widely acclaimed web designer and authority on CSS and web standards. Russ is a co-founder of the Web Standards Group and Web Essentials conferences
- Tim Berners-Lee, father of the web
Awards and Recognition
- Ten questions for Laura Carlson interview, July 2006
- A gold edition Talking Hands Award from Lancasters Laughing Place
- A gold award for the Web Design Update newsletter in the University of Minnesota's Communicators Forum Maroon and Gold competition
- The Web Design Reference site is featured as a web design portal and a screen shot of the site's homepage is published in Greg Baker and Tom Bowen's book, " First Byte, 6th edition", Oxford University Press, 2005
Contact
- Please let us know if there is anything we can do to make this site more accessible or usable. Contact ITSS