Web Design

In the 1980s, I started playing around with computers. My first was a Radio Shack TRS-80 that was barely functional and not particularly reliable.

Over time, I acquired more computers (Apple II, Macintosh, Zenith, Panasonic, HP, etc.), initially Macs, because of their easy user interface. Later, I moved to PC-based computers because of their lower cost. After Windows became available, I found the two interfaces to be equivalent. (Still later, I moved back to Macs, because of their durability and less of a tendency to crash.)

Website on a Disc

When I was in the Navy, working on provider training for large numbers of personnel, I discovered that I could build a “website” and burn the site onto a CD, creating a portable site that did not depend on the internet for usability. This was ideal for the Navy. While their ships had some internet connectivity, the Medical Departments were often limited to a 1-hour window of use, from 2 am to 3 am, which they share with the Engineering Department.

These early “websites” were constructed using a Microsoft program known as FrontPage. It was not the only site building program (Netscape, for example), but I found it the easiest to use because of its’ graphical WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) interface. It enabled me to create websites without knowing the least bit of HTML code. That actually overstates FrontPage’s capabilities, since I discovered that knowing even a little bit of code made FrontPage work much better.

Using this disc format with FrontPage, I created a large amount of training material for the Navy (and later the Army, Air Force, and others). I continued to produce this same basic type of training material for civilian use. I’ve distributed many thousands of these discs.

Real Websites

After my website on a disc experience in the Navy, I decided to release the same type of training material on the internet, where you wouldn’t have to have the disc to access the content.

In the beginning, I continued to use FrontPage (familiarity), but when it was no longer being upgraded, it became somewhat obsolete. I switched to Adobe Dreamweaver, which I still use. Dreamweaver is a powerful website management tool, and probably too complicated for me to love, but I’ve been able to make it work well enough to manage my sites.

WordPress

WordPress is a free website design and management system that was started as a simple way for people to blog. That is, they could publish their thoughts periodically in “posts” that others could access via internet. It had a simple user interface that made creating posts nearly effortless by individuals with minimal to no computer background.

But WordPress has evolved into an extremely powerful application that seamlessly incorporates “pages”, a more permanent form of a “post”. By creating and linking pages, a robust website can be created. While not as powerful or versatile as Dreamweaver, it is powerful and versatile enough for my needs, and much simpler to use.

Site Design

In theory, you can use any kind of site design you want, but to be an effective learning site, there are some general guidelines you will find useful.  Some of these I’ve read about, some are supported by science, and some I’ve learned the hard way over the years:

  1. Be consistent. Every page should be structured like every other page.
  2. Mimimize or eliminate backgrounds. Black letters on white background is easier to read than gold letters on canvas.
  3. Text should be in reader-friendly columns. There are reasons why newspapers and magazines use a column format, but chief among them is readability. Long stretches of text that run the whole width of the page are too hard for the eyes to follow without jumping into the next line.
  4. Writing for a website is not the same as writing for a textbook or journal article. Use short paragraphs of 3 sentences (max), and single sentence paragraphs are just fine. Make use of bulleted and numbered lists. Try to make your tone conversational and avoid the 3rd person writing that is so common in professional publications.
  5. Use colors that are pleasant and complimentary. Use them in moderation so they don’t detract from the content.
  6. Less is better. Blank space on the webpage is not wasteful. If anything, it helps the viewer focus on the content.

Responsive Design

The problem with traditional websites is that they don’t adapt easily to mobile use. It isn’t that the site won’t appear on an iPhone, but when it does, the links are so close together they are quite difficult to touch just one without a lot of enlarging the image. Horizontal scrolling is also difficult. It would be better if the webpage were set up for mobile (phone and tablet) use. Actually, it would be better still if a single website could respond to the user and feed it a webpage that is specific for the user’s device. This is called “responsive design”.

This is a much bigger issue than what I anticipated several years ago. Currently, for one of my websites (Brooksidepress.org):

  • Each day, visitors view approximately 10,000 webpages.
  • A little over half of those visitors (54%) are using “mobile” devices, including Apple iPads and iPhones, and comparable products from Samsung and Google.
  • 32% of the visitors are using Apple iPhones.
  • 10% of the visitors are using Apple iPads.

While I recognize that not having responsive sites is a liability for my learners,  converting my thousands and thousands of web pages from a static to responsive design is a huge undertaking. But I’ve gotten started, because it is really important.

WordPress has “themes” that are responsive. These themes already have the responsive issues addressed and can be incorporated into any WordPress site easily. There is usually some additional tweaking needed to ensure a full conversion, but these are easy tweaks.

You are reading this page on a WordPress site (https://grayhairedobgyn.com/blog/) that has had the them “Twentyfourteen” installed. If you open this site on your tablet or cell phone, you can see how the site reacts to the different device.

Some of my websites are now totally converted to responsive design. Some are partially converted (the front end is converted, but the deeper you probe into the site, the more likely you will find some static design pages). And a few are still awaiting conversion. Hey, this takes a while!

Advertising

Website design and maintenance has proven to be an engaging, professionally satisfying activity for me, but it is also time consuming and associated with some costs. To defray those costs, I’ve included advertising (Googleads), and more recently from eHealthcare Solutions.

The size, shape, location, and number of ads on a page represent a delicate balance between effective advertising, and interference with the learning process.

 

Notes from a Medical Educator