Phil Bradley and Anna Smith
World Wide Web: How to Design and Construct Home Pages.
Aslib : London, 1995, An Aslib know How Guide, 0185142 373 6, 52pp
Review by Isobel Stark

This guide is a straightforward, step by step introduction to HTML authoring. It takes the reader from a basic description of the Internet to creating forms on the Web in just over thirty pages. The guide is most definitely an introduction - the last chapter consists of pointers to further reading/resources etc. - but as an introduction it is reasonably thorough and confidently paced. All the main issues are covered: why are you creating WWW pages; what information do you want to display and where; what is HTML; who should you link to; who you should link from; how many graphics should you include; how do you create a form; what are Netscape extensions; whose server do you use?

The authors are realistic. They lay great emphasis on the planning stage due the number of ill convinced pages there are to be found on the WWW. They also point out the importance of keeping the pages up to date which means spending a certain amount of time each week, not once in a blue moon. Although the chapter on graphics is almost entirely devoted to 'Enhancing a home page for Netscape', the importance of platform independence is stressed throughout the guide. Authors are even encouraged to collect as many browsers as they can find in order to compare how their pages look on each. Alt text within the Image element as well as accompanying text is emphasised as important not just as a common courtesy, in order for browsers for the visually impaired correctly to interpret a page. Those in academic and public services should certainly bear this in mind.

The most useful chapter to the novice HTML author is 'Designing pages for the World Wide Web' in which the reader is guided through the making of a page from basic text information to greater sophistication. Head and body information, headings, paragraphs, horizontal rules, images, lists of all types and links are covered. Source code and a screen dump of the page are given at each stage of construction and each element and tag is explained as it occurs giving the reader a clear understanding of what each does.

I have only two slight quibbles. One is about the nomenclature. The authors, understandably, do not want to frighten the novice with many technical terms, however there are instances when it would have been useful to introduce these. For example in chapter two the concept of a URL is introduced and the reader is told to keep their URL short, although they may have little influence over the first part of the URL as it will be governed by the name of the organisation whose WWW server it is. The next page discusses bookmarks which it says is "another good reason to have a sensible and coherent name for your page" which might lead the reader to think that name meant URL when in fact the examples then given seem more to be from the Title element. A differentiation in the text at this point between URL (address) and Title (name) would not have gone amiss. The other is the apparent claim by the authors Internet derives from INTERnational NETwork of computers - a blatant error, which, as it occurs on page 2, does rather dent your faith in the work.

However these are only two minor criticisms in an overall well written and thought out guide. As ASLIB guide it is aimed at business as well as public sector information specialists and the Higher education practitioner might find that there is much that is redundant in the guide (such as the discussion of commercial hosts fro WWW pages), although it is probably less true for this guide than for the majority that are on the market. As a short introduction to the practicalities of creating WWW pages, this know how guide is one of the best available today.

Material on this page is copyright Ariadne/original authors. This page last updated on July 15th 1996