or Why Are We Learning Wed Design on a Sub-Par Program?
Ok, I know some of you have heard me rant about my dislike lof Muse so far; how it will not allow me to do the things I can hand code or that even Dreamweaver will do when it comes to CSS and inserting accessibility code blah, blah, blah. So tonight when I got home I started over with a new and very simple design. Nothing with advanced CSS or that would require scripting. Telling myself, "Ok Theresa, this is still in beta they say and I just need to learn it even though I probably will never use it. Give it a fair chance". So I did and everything was moving along quite well till it came time to insert the content. Here is when the screaming and cussing started.
Muse can't do ordered or unordered lists! Seriously! A basic and very much used formatting and Muse can't do it! So I take a deep breath and go and pick the book back up, from across the room and re-read . . . nothing! Ok, ok, breath deep and time to go to my go to guy Google, surely he won't let me down and sure enough, YEAH, there it is on Adobe's web site; Create Bullets in Your Design for Muse! I am saved . . . NOT!
Adobe's answer for number and bullet lists, tighten the leading of the text that is to be our list. Then put some more space above and below it. In insert a bullet in front of the first item (option 8 on a mac it seems). Then indent the lists and then, and this if so messed up, then invert the first line with a negative value! WHAT KIND OF MONKEY SH*T IS THIS ADOBE! There has been ordered and unordered lists since the mid-1993 publication of the first proposal for an HTML specification: "Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)" Internet-Draft by Berners-Lee and Dan Connolly! This was BEFORE there was HTML! Even Microsoft Frontpage 1.01 could do them!
Now why is this important? Well I am going to tell you, Accessibility, SEO and Useability! Screen readers for the blind read lists differently from paragraphs and other text. It is hard enough using a screen reader and being blind when all accessibility standards are in place, this will drive them crazy. Don't believe me? Google screen readers for the blind and download one for free then go to any page and close your eyes and listen and try to navigate and understand the site you are at, I dare you.
SEO, search engines and directories also deal with lists differently. Want to know why we use lists for navigation and give our navigation meaningful names? BECAUSE THE ARE GIVEN GREATER WEIGHT THAN NORMAL TEXT! That's right list get preferred treatment by Google and Yahoo and all other search engine and directories. That translates out to better ranking, more traffic and happier customers.
Useability, this one is simple.. go ahead to do what they suggest to make a bullet list and then print it. Now print it off another computer with a different printer. Yeah does not look the same does it. Now turn off CCS in your browser and look at it. Looks like a mess!
I am livid right now that we are being taught a beta program that already writes crap code with a lot of waste that can't even do a basic text formatting! There is no way to put in tabular data either (tables). The industry standard is Dreamweaver, why are we not learning that? Muse is a program made because a bunch of graphic artist and document layout people started crying that they did not want to learn any coding to make web pages! They are too lazy and too whiny and so some idiot decided to invest money to shut them up and Muse is what was vomited out!
Twenty years doing this and I would not hire anyone whose knowledge of web design came from this class. Nothing against the instructors but this is a rip off of our money. Our education should not be used to beta test anyone's product. The class is "Web Design" not web fail and by taking the time to learn this inferior product we all are going to fail.
Personally, I'm not a DIGM major, but what I take away from the class is that it's focused on the Design aspect which is more concerned with the visual aspect and less with back-end processes. Not to say coding is not important by any means.
ReplyDeleteBeing that the class is still at the 2000 level, I don't necessarily bash it because it's trying to get us to think about what we see on the screen as end users. I would imagine that they would create more classes directed towards html, css, in addition to some javascript concepts following this one.
I think this class is directed toward how digital media students can use their design background to be displayed on the web and what works visually, MUSE being the quick way to establish that within one semester.
Coming down to my final two semesters I've learned this: If there is an area that you wish to accel at and enjoy, usually you'll learn it on your own out of desire or necessity (on the job or for a job). Most degree programs are designed to give you the "journeymen/journeywomen" type of qualifications.
And thank you for disabling CAPTCHA!
ReplyDeleteYou are welcome and I will use your comment for my next rant :)
DeleteTheresa,
ReplyDeletePlease make an appointment to speak with me personally about the DIGM program and its goals. My email is jwaite@uh.edu.
Also, please take the DIGM 1000 Orientation Course that is on your Blackboard page. It will answer many of your concerns.