ICT-Topic 13 Web Software

Web browser

• Web browser software is a program that allows access to webpages stored on the Internet, for example:
• Chrome, Fire Fox

Two types of web software:

• Browser software- used to search for and view websites
• Web development software- used to create webpages/ websites for example: Dream weaver

Features of web browser software: 

• Can access a webpage using a URL
• Can perform key word searches

Creating websites:

House style- websites need to convey an image that reflects the organization. It needs to fit

in with other material produced by the organization such as brouchers, business cards etc

• Audience- you always need to know who your main audience wil be and tailor then content, look and navigation to suit them
• Techniques used- there is a huge difference between a website for a large company produced by professional website designers and a personal websie produced by someone with few disign and technical skills 
• Size- you need to consider the number of pages. Remember that websites often start small but begin to grow rapidly as they become popular

Interactive features:

• Onlie forms
• Email
• Quizzes
• Questionnaire
• Games

Website facilities:

• Master pages and templates- these supply a structure for creating webpages that will follow a certain style
• Home page
• Site Navigation- how easy it is to move around a website, with the minimum number of clicks
• Hyperlinks
• Hotspots- are an image or piece of text used as a link on a webpage
• Rollover button/image
• Bookmarks/favourites
• Anchor links
• Leader boards and banners
• Golden triangle: when users search for information using a search engine they are presented witha lift of results. Experiments show that where users looked on a set of results they tended to concentrate on the top left hand side of the screen. It shows the importance of getting your website to feature in this golden triangle of results

Navigation bars:

• Web browsers contain a toolbar called the navigation bar containing buttons that you use to move around the site and perform certain actions. These buttons typically include:
• Back, Forward, Refresh, Home, Stop, Search

HTML:

• HyperText Markup Language
• Special code used for making web pages
• Used to specify the layout and structure of a web page, using what are knows as tags

Hosting of websites:

• A website is a computer that contains the information that users of the internet can access using their web browser

Uploading times:

• The uploading time is the time it takes to take a website that has been produced on a computer and then transfer it over a network to a web serve

• Uploading times will depend on the following:
• The resolution of any images used
• Animations or movies used
• The number of webpages on the website
• The compexity of the design
• The amount of content on the webpage

Advantages of webpages and webpage features:

• Makes the information available to a huge number of people
• Enable anyoe who has access to the Internet to be able to access the information 
• Use multimedia features to make the site interesting to users

Disadvantages of webpages and webpage features:

• Some features such as Flash movies can take time to load and this can put off users from using the site
• People who do not have access to the Internet are at a huge disadvantages