Web
Careers Resources
Professional Organizations and Jobs
American
Society for Information Science and Technology. <http://www.asis.org/>
Association
for Computing Machinery. <http://www.acm.org/>.
See especially SIGCHI (computers and human interaction), SIGUSE (usability),
and SIGDOC (documentation).
Usability
Professionals Association Website. <http://www.upassoc.org/>
Site is actually somewhat hard to use. Go figure.
Starting Points for Graphic (and
other) Design
Web
Page Design for Designers. <http://www.wpdfd.com/
>. Perhaps predictably, it's a little overdesigned
(I keep thinking "PowerPoint" when I look at the splash page), but
the factual info is very good.
Starting Points for Information Architecture
JJG.com.
<http://www.jjg.net/ia/>.
Index of resources on information architecture (very detailed):
Webmonkey Short Course on Information Architecture. <http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/design/site_building/tutorials/tutorial1.html>.
Written by an author and designer named "Squishy"; how can you go
wrong?
Starting Points for Usability
Useit.com.
<http://www.useit.com> Jakob
Nielsen's Website. Opinionated (and in my opinion,
sometimes wrong) but a great and in depth starting point. Includes
links to Alertbox, his biweekly column.
Georgia
Tech's Graphics, Visualization, and
Usability
Methods Toolbox. <http://jthom.best.vwh.net/usability/>
Not the most attractive kid in its class, interface-wise, but
an extensive collection of information and pointers related to numerous types
of usability.
Bruce
Tognazzini's site. <http://www.asktog.com/>,
see AskTog columns and Design Section for great,
brief discussions of usability on various topics ranging from a Photoshop
6 interface usability critique through analyses of poor usability in airport
security. (Tog founded the highly influential Human Interface Design Group
at Apple.)
Neilsen Norman Group Consulting. <http://www.nngroup.com/>
Called a "design dream team" (by themselves as well as others) headed
by Jakob Neilsen, Don Norman, and Bruce
Tognazzini. (Apparently Tog's lawyers weren't sharp
enough to get his initial in....)
JND: Just Noticeable
Difference. <http://www.jnd.org/>
Don
Various Weblogs
Weblogs are diaries or news sites
that typically contain a mix of original writing and pointers to other information
on the web, updated frequently (often daily). Often idiosyncratic, opinionated,
and interesting (especially when you can find a weblog that fits your own interests and temperment).
IASlash (Information Architecture). <http://www.iaslash.org/>
Interaction
by Design. <http://www.interactionbydesign.com/thoughts/thumbnails/index.html>
In Print
As a quick walk through the Internet and WWW section of any
chain bookstore will tell you, there seem to be nearly as many pages published
in *print* about the WWW as there are on the WWW itself. The two main presses
for professional Web design are New Rider's Press and O'Reilly.
New
Rider's Press. <http://www.newriders.com/>.
Specializes in digital graphic design, books for both novices
and experts. Branching out into more technical aspects.
O'Reilly Press.
<http://www.oreillynet.com/>
Specializes in technical side of Web development (and computer profession
in general) but branching into other areas. Each book title has a different
animal on the cover.
New Media Software
Macromedia Flash.
<http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/>
Web animation, content integration, new media design.
Flash
Tutorials. <http://www.kirupa.com/developer/flash5/home.htm>,
<http://www.designsbymark.com/flashtut/index.shtml>, <http://www.wdvl.com/Authoring/Flash/>
Premiere
+ After Effects. <http://www.adobe.com/motion/main.html> Consumer level standard for digital video editing and production.
Premiere
Tutorials. <http://studio.adobe.com/>.
Dreamweaver. <http://www.macromedia.com/software/dreamweaver/>
Most widely used professional website development program.
Photoshop.
<http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/main.html>.
Sort of retro (it's been around forever in digital media development terms),
but still the swiss army ginsu knife of image
editing.
Scripting, Database
Servers, etc.
JavaScript
Tutorials. < http://www.pageresource.com/jscript/>.
PHP Official Website. < http://www.php.net/>. Downloads, tutorials, faq, PR, etc. Often used in conjunction with MySQL (see below)
PHP Builder Resources. < http://www.phpbuilder.com/getit/>.
Tutorials and more.
PHP Short Course. < http://builder.cnet.com/webbuilding/pages/Programming/PHPIntro/>.
Cold
Fusion. <http://www.macromedia.com/software/coldfusionstudio/>
Zope. <http://www.zope.org/>. Open Source web application developer environment and server.
XML.com
< http://www.xml.com/>.
EXtensible Markup Language (sort of like
HTML, but (a) very high powered, and (b) allows developers to create new tags
and classes).
MySQL. < http://www.devshed.com/Server_Side/MySQL>. Popular open source database server; often used in conjunction with PHP (see above).
MySQL Tutorial at WebMonkey. < http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/programming/php/tutorials/tutorial4.html>.
Apache
Web Server. < http://www.apache.org>
Most widely implemented web server; open source.
General Web Developers Resource Sites
Web Developers' Virtual
Library. <http://www.wdvl.com/>
Digital Video Editing's
tutorial section (ranges from Premiere and Avid through Photoshop). <http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/Htm/teksplash.htm>
Webmonkey: Web Design Discussion & Tutorials. <http://www.webmonkey.com/>
WebReview <http://www.webreview.com/>.
Slashdot
<http://www.slashdot.org/>.
Linux community news, resources, discussion.
New Media Studies. < http://www.newmediastudies.com/>. Applied theory.
New.Architect . < http://www.webtechniques.com/>.
Formerly WebTechniques.
TC
on Eserver. < http://tc.eserver.org>.
Wide range of resources for TC in general.