Next week we’ll be in the home stretch for the CSS Zen Garden Redesign assignment. By Tuesday you should have a solid draft of your design that you are willing to share with your peers in class. Before you come to class on Tuesday, upload your design to a directory named “zengarden” on your myweb.stedwards.edu website. We will project your designs onto the big screen and spend a few minutes critiquing them as a class.
I realize that this exercise may make some of you terribly uncomfortable, but I cannot stress enough how important it is to get this kind of feedback when you’re working on a new website design. Don’t worry—no one will be 100% happy with what they’ve done, and everyone will be at least a bit nervous about displaying their work in class. Do not be tempted to bail out on us! Regardless of how far along your design is, please show up on Tuesday ready to explain your visual motif and ask for feedback on a few specific aspects of your design.
Since we’ve been neck-deep in CSS for the past few weeks, I thought it only fair to spend some time with our greatly neglected friend: the table. Tables have fallen out of vogue in recent years, but you shouldn’t leave this class without understanding why they’re used less than they once were and, more importantly, how to use them effectively for displaying tabular data. Please read Hour 7 in the Sams book and “Bring on the Tables,” by Roger Johansson, before you come to class on Thursday.
As you can see, both of our class sessions will be packed next week, so your work on the CSS Zen Garden project will need to take place primarily on your own. If you would like me to give you some one-on-one feedback on your project, I am available to meet with you during my office hours, or at another time that’s convenient for both of us. Just drop me a line if you’d like to meet.