Whatever made you stumble across my web page?  Anyway you?re here, so there?s no turning back.  I hope you enjoy your visit as I share with you my adventures as a Web Designer.  A LOT of time and hard work.  The road to becoming a web designer has been rough, but definitely worth it.  Life as a web designer can be a lot of FUN.  I?m still a novice, but hope to someday become an expert designer.

In this report I comment on Jeff Glover?s site, where he discusses the components of a "sucky" and "savvy" home page.  I have also included some of Dr. James? ideas that I have taken from his Social Psychological Principles of Home Page Architecture article.  His ideas are interesting and I will comment on a few of them.  Enjoy your visit!

What makes a SUCKY web design?  Is it the background colors?  Are there too many graphics?  Is it the font size?  Maybe the blinking titles?  Find out at Glover.com.  The site is created by Jeff Glover, a web designer who has gathered feedback from Internet surfers about what they think Sucks and what they think is Savvy.

The site is actually a lot of fun to visit.  Mr. Glover kept me amused as I learned more about him and web design.  The purpose of Jeff?s site is to assist web designers in designing a web page that is attractive to visit.  While he gives guidelines as to what constitutes as SUCKY web design, he also reminds designers that, "Good design is a matter of YOUR personal taste and style, not someone else?s!"

Mr. Glover?s web page is far from boring.  The structure of his web page is simple and easy to follow.  The site is packed with a lot of helpful advice.  Both novice and professional web designers will benefit from Jeff Glover?s site.  Jeff even designed his own icons.  I was in the process of copying one of his cool icons, but stopped when I read this:  All graphics you see were created by me. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited!  It wasn?t a big deal, I agreed with him and respected his wishes.

Want to know just how SUCKY your web page is?  Check out Jeff?s Glover?s site, titled "Top 10 Ways to Tell If You Have a Sucky Home Page."  The site is a quick guide that describes some of the most irritating things people find when browsing home pages.

Each page has three parts:
1.  "What is it?" will explain the element or style.
2.  "Why is it Sucky/Savvy" will explain why it sucks or is savvy.
3.  "What you can do about it..." will show you how to go from "Sucky" to     "Savvy."

Each page also has cool ratings to indicate just how Sucky or Savvy a particular element was.
 
 

The SUCKY list is similar to his Top 10 list.  The difference is found in his explanations, to turn the sucky elements into savvy ones.  For example, the first element on the list was BLINK.  It?s obvious that blinking text is annoying.  His advice is to try using Bold or a LARGER Size text to emphasize your point.  Thanks for the advice Jeff!
 
 

The SAVVY list consists of three parts like the SUCKY list.  One element I found helpful was his advice to use thumbnail graphics.  Thumbnails are smaller, lower resolution versions of larger images.  Everyone enjoys cools graphics but when they take too long to load, forget it.  Let?s face it, time is precious and people are impatient.  Thumbnail graphics allow site visitors to choose which images they would like to wait for and allow them to skip images they do not want to spend time to download.

Jeff Glover?s site is FUN and informative.  When you have time, check it out.  I assure you, you won?t regret it.  It?s a site I would recommend to anyone designing a web page.  Jeff?s SUCKY to SAVVY advice has been very helpful.  I wish I found this site earlier- it would?ve saved myself a lot of time and misery.

You've made your home page.  Admit it, you're impressed with the results.  You're excited to show it to the world.  But wait, did you ever wonder why we even call it a HOME?  Read Professor James' article on Social Psychological Aspects of Home Page Architecture and discover why he and many others spend countless hours on the Internet maintaining their home pages.  Dr. James covers a number of ideas relating to home page architecture.  After reading the article, I immediately took an interest to a few of his idea.
 
Cyberspace, wow is that a cool concept or what?  Here in cyberspace we spend our time receiving and writing email, creating home pages, and visiting home pages.  For those who have home pages, why is it like a HOME to us?  Our home in cyberspace is our home pages.  As the Professor points out,

My regular house requires upkeep, naturally, and we clean and tend the plants, and fix things, and shop around for things that go in it, and of course, we give loving care to our cats, who see themselves as part of the house.

My Home Page is my other house. It sits in cyberspace. I had a difficult time explaining why I call a bunch of computer files on my drive by the name of "my house" or "my home." He had a bunch of folders and files on his computer and he didn't see why he should call this his house.

There's no place like home.  But is it really possible to fall in love with your hompages?  Why do we love our home in cyberspace?  I remember the very first home page I created three years ago.  My weekends were gone as I spend hours working on the perfect home page.  I was so proud of myself, I even gave my URL address to my friends.  For those of you who've never created a home page, it's difficult to understand the love between web designers and the pages they create.  Professor James attempts to explain why Home Pages are Loved.

I was proud the way the whole Page fit into one screen. There was even a little space left at the bottom. I worked hours to get that little extra space. It brings out the shading in table border and best of all, it lets you know that that's all there is.  You don't have to wonder or try the PageDown key or scroll the bar. It all neatly fits into one screen full, giving you a chance to relax your hand and take in the information. My friend said, So this is it. This is what you spend hours a day at.

My love is in My Home Page architecture -- and this requires an inside view, a perspective obtainable only through doing the work of a cyberspace architect.

We need to look at our Home Pages with an objective eye. In general, we try to achieve two important results with a Home Page. One is that it should be clear (unconfusing), informative and useful. The other is that it should be beautiful, with a creative and entertaining style. These two aspects can be discussed as the informational and stylistic features of Home Pages.

Me a Web Designer?  I guess so, if you consider someone who makes web pages a web designer.  The title sounds a little prestigious for an average web creator like myself.  Before taking this Cyber-psychology class I designed a couple of web pages for school projects, but I never thought of considering myself a web designer.  So when did it all begin?

Once upon a time... Actually it was my freshman year.  I was set on getting myself into the University of Hawaii College of Business.  One of the requirements was taking the course,  Introductory to Computer Sciences 101.  Before course, I barely knew anything about computers.  I knew how to write a paper on my computer, but was about it.  In this class, we also learned how to create a simple home page.  I was excited to have my very own Home Page.  During those days, which was only a few years ago, all web pages were created using the HTML language only.  I spent my days in the computer lab working on creating the perfect home page.  Going out on a Saturday night was out of the question.  I was determined to finish a home page that I could be proud of.  It's actually still up on the web.  I don't recommend it, but is you wish to check it out, go to www2.hawaii.edu/~viinuma.  It's really not much, but I'm still proud of it because it was the first  Were my web creating days over?  A couple of the business courses required students to form groups and create web pages.  Lucky for me, students in my group were very knowledgeable when it came to designing web pages.  I really didn't do much and as a result I didn't learn much either.

How I ended up taking Professor James' Cyber-Psychology course.  I needed one more writing intensive course to meet my graduation requirements for this semester.  I took the course thinking it would be a breeze.  I had a lot of computer experience in my business courses, I could handle this course.  An easy A is what I needed.  I was in for a BIG surprise!  The first assignments were simple.  So far so good.  But then came the part where we had to create web pages.  Weren't my web creating days behind me?  I'll admit, this is where I ran into BIG problems.

What happened to my web creating skills I acquired in ICS 101?  I completely forgot everything.
How pathetic.  Relearning HTML, wasn't simple.  It took a lot of time and a lot of hard work.  I spent countless nights in front of my computer.  The road to success was tough, but eventually I did it.  In the beginning, I spent most of my time STRESSING out.  The more I worked at the computer, the easier it got and the less I stressed.  The hard work was starting to pay off.  My old web designing skills were slowly coming back.  I was actually finding it exciting again.  For this class, I've created a total of total web pages.  Check it out.
 

My Newsgroups File | My Home Page | My Generations File My First Oral Presentation File | My Second Oral Presentation File My Report 1: How Drivers Communicate | My Report 2: Social Psychology of Web Architecture

Seven web pages over a period of three months!  Is that an accomplishment or what?  A Web Designer, Up that's me.  Lets just hope that I donut lose my web designing skills again.  Do I intend to include my knowledge of web designing experience in my resume?  You bet!

Are my web designing days over?  I highly doubt it.  In fact, I plan to re-do my original home page when I have the time.  This May I'm graduating with a B.F.. in accounting.  Only two more weeks until graduation, I cant wait!  In the future I plan to attend law school and pursue my dreams of becoming a tax lawyer.  Maybe one day Ill even have my own practice.  If that day ever comes, Ill be sure to advertise my business on the Internet.
 
 

I have listed a couple of interesting sites that I found using the Yahoo and Excite search engines. The sites provide additional insight in the area of Psychology and Web Design.  I hope you take the time to check these site out.  I also stumbled across a cool search engine created for the people who make the web. It indexes only sites that are relevant to making web pages.  The search engine is DevSearch.

Hyper Terrorist's Guide to Design on the WorldWide Web
The site is divided into various subsections that describe elements of good web design  The section, The Ten Commandments of Good WWWeb Design is similar to Jeff Glover's Sucky to Savvy site.  Although not as entertaining, the site also discusses problems that web designers face.

The Psychology of Web Design
The site covers an in-depth view of the psychological forces in web design. It's a great site if you're looking to gain an interesting perspective on web designing issues.  The author also offers advice for creating a web page that readers will find interesting.