[For those coming in from Ma.gnolia, it might be helpful to know, until I get my category tags fixed, that this is part of my web design for authors series.]
The choice between designing a site yourself or hiring someone to do it for you is a lot like the choice between negotiating your novel contract yourself or getting an agent. Having someone else do it is a big expense; no two ways about it. But just how much time are you willing to invest in learning the business of web design? Itââ
I am only 13 years old but I would still like the oppritunity to do this.
I agree with what you’ve said here, except for the 12-year-old part. Change that to, oh, 8-year-old and it’ll fit right in with my Web knowledge.
I made this page for my dad …. http://www.cfab.co.uk …. is it really that bad… we never fell out over it either!
To add to the comment above, left by my daughter Rachael, who is 14 years old… It’s a 40 page site, designed predominently in FrontPage (with a bit of manual HTML & Javascript), and I am over the moon with it. Most visitors to the site, who subsequently contact me, comment on how professional the site looks and how it must have cost a fortune, considering the fact that the going rate, for a 3-4 page static site, seems to be between £200 – £300. We actually worked very closely in getting the site exactly how I wanted it and it only ended up taking 4 half days to complete… I suppose it really is all down to having confidence in the ability of the person you use.
John and Rachael: I’m really glad it worked out for you and you’re happy with the results.
The site does look fairly good. If you’re at all worried about attracting business from search engines, I would suggest a few changes. (And these are typical of all sites designed in FrontPage, which has a host of problems, and are not, I would say, a slight on Rachael’s skills.)
First, I’d try replacing the menu rollovers with CSS-based menus to eliminate the massive amount of Javascript. Listamatic is a good example of this, and List-o-matic makes it fairly easy to accomplish.
Second, I’d reconsider the use of frames. What search engines see when they visit your site is “Your browser does not support script If you can see this, your browser does not support iframes!” rather than your actual content.
Third, I’d use real heading tags and style them with CSS rather than using font tags. This improves accessibility and allows search engines to figure out which phrases on your page are most important. (Font tags are deprecated — that is, they are not allowed in the latest versions of HTML.)
Putting alt attributes on all the images would be a good idea, as well.
In fact, doing just about everything mentioned on diveintoaccessibility.org would be an excellent idea, but I’ve called out all the ones that would help you most.
Rachael, if you don’t want to learn HTML, the single best thing you could do for yourself is ditch FrontPage and look for an editor that will write standards-compliant HTML. Dreamweaver is probably the best, but it’s very expensive. I believe NVU is one of the best free editors.