Al's site,
Interactive Design Forum

WEB HISTORY | STATISTICS | CONTENT & WRITING | VISUAL DESIGN | DON'T DO THIS! | TYPOGRAPHY | COLOR | STYLE SHEETS | DOMAINS & HOSTING | PROMOTION | FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS

Web history & facts

• Detailed timeline of how the web developed, from 1958 Arpanet to 2001 Napster.
  
• Another timeline, plus a Browser emulator lets you relive web history ... see how websites used to look.
  
• General web info

Statistics

• BrowserNews reports statistics on browsers, screen resolution, color depth and search engine usage from a variety of sources.
• Global statistics give a pretty good snapshot of browser, color depth, OS, etc. compiled from thousands of websites worldwide.
• Free check of links to your website (checks AltaVista, Google, Hotbot)

Content & writing

• Difference between writing for print and writing for Web
• Many links to articles on writing for the web - good starting point.

Visual design

• Learn from the mistakes of others: Web pages that suck.
  
• The evils of "mystery meat navigation" - why looking cool may be a very very bad thing.
• Designing for the web: lessons learned from newspaper publishing
• Browser compatibility tutorial explains screen resolution, font differences, browser differences and more.
• Article lists maximum viewable area using different browsers; gets the idea right, but old info (version 4 browsers).
  

Don't do this!

• Incredibly busy & confusing site for kids - happychild

Typography

• Statistics on user preferences in type size, style, etc.
• Standard fonts for Windows, Mac, and Microsoft products (both platforms).
• User preferences: perceived legibility, "personality" of font, etc.
  

Color

• Easy way to develop color palette: compare 4 colors plus text color; includes preset color themes.
• Tons of color charts, articles, references on understanding & using color.

Style sheets - CSS

• Find out what browsers support various CSS functions; comprehensive and useful, not updated as of Aug. 2006.

Domains, hosting & beyond

• NameBoy helps you pick a domain name - fun & easy
• Another name generator: more clever than NameBoy, more options & choices
• Surrealist Domain Name Generator: just for fun.
• Inexpensive domain name registry; ignore all the extras they try to sell you.
• Builder.com links to good selection of resources, including tutorials, books, etc.

Promotion

• A Yahoo! listing is the single most important milestone in promoting your site. Detailed advice on how to submit your listing. Essential reading!

• Extensive article on photo marketing, piracy, copyright issues.
• Don't disable right click! Other ways to protect images and code.