For those of you who don’t know. I’m a Computer Science student at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. I got into web design before I was in college and I’ve found throughout my academic journey that being a good C/C+/Python programmer has led me to be a good PHP/javascript programmer. I love web design because it’ s not entirely scientific, it’s much more people based, but often times when we as web design professionals must design highly scalable websites, or websites that need to be easily maintained it is neccassary that we be familiar with Computer Science principles and be accustomed to the general thought process of a Computer Scientist. I whole heartedly believe that as you grow to be a better academic programmer you will grow to be a better web professional. For those of you who have already left your college days behind you I’ve compiled a few wonderful resources for begining your journey into the realm of academic computing.

Located at: http://code.google.com/edu

Google code is a wonderful resource for web designers because Google’s business is web, but it’s methodology is very academic. Google’s code university is a great way to keep up to date with the new and innovative things happening at google.

Located at: http://ocw.mit.edu

MIT, one of the world’s premere universities for Computer Science has graciously opened up their lecture halls to the masses. They’ve included everything from introduction to computer science to some of their much more advanced courses.

http://academicearth.com

Academic Earth is a wonderful resource for all subjects. It’s computer science courses include lectures from top schools such as Berkley, Stanford, and MIT.

What to Take Away

Some of the lectures included material that is at a graduate level, unless you’re particularly interested or talented don’t expect to understand everything that’s talked about in these courses. Remember YOU aren’t being graded over this information and even if you only understand 40% of the material that’s it’s still going to help you as you approach your day to day problems and stretch your thinking into new directions. I hope you find these resources helpful, happy coding.

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Here’s our list of (web design related) news feeds:

Did we miss anything? Do you read a blog that’s not included in this list, do you think we should start reading your blog? Leave your thoughts and suggestions in the comments.

Thanks everybody,

Adam

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We here at Casa Nova Designs have been very busy designing a web based health care system (soon to be launched UsHospitalCareers.com) In our time developing this website we have learned much about ourselves and had the opportunity to improve our communication with clients greatly.

As developers we do the best that we can to communicate our technical ideas to our clients in easy to understand language. It is important that the client is also able to communicate to a developer what they need for their project so that the project can be completed in the fastest most cost effective manner possible. Here are 5 points that we feel with make your project go smoothly.

1.Know what you’re trying to accomplish.

What do you want your customers/users to accomplish by visiting your website? Do you want to provide information about the company? sell products? provide a place for employees to collaborate? We can provide all of this functionality and suggest features when necessary, but thinking about things like this in advance will make sure that your website provides a platform that can truly transform your business.

2. Know what you like.

If you are interested in being involved in the graphical design of your website (some clients prefer that all creative control be given to us, we find that very flattering) it is important that you know what you like. It saves several hours of development and collaboration if you are able to provide examples of websites that you like, and when possible, explanations of why you like them. “I like this web site’s colors”, or “I like the navigation of this website” are simple ways that you can let us know what you like, so we can produce a website that you love.

3. Get your camera ready.

If you have any logo files, pictures of your products, employess, workspace etc. That you’d like to include on your website having those items ready will greatly reduce the time it takes for us to create your website. If you need us to take any pictures for you or to scan any images that you have a hard copy of we can also provide that service.
4. Know what you want to say.

If you already know what information you would like to have on your website including that information will help us greatly. We as developers can write content for your pages (This content is known as web copy), but often times a client is able to describe their company’s history, mission, etc. best in their own words. This may seem like a daunting task but, adding web copy is often one of the last steps in the design process and a client can write their content in tandem as the developer creates the website.

5. Stick with it.

Once we’ve begun a project it is difficult to change the direction. We can when necessary make changes but, these changes will result in additional time and expense. So make sure you think about your project carefully before giving us the green light. Once you’ve laid the groundwork for your web site try to step back, design time various based upon the size of the project from a couple of days to several weeks. If you do have an idea for a developer try to contact them as quickly as possible so that they can implement your new idea with as little duplication of effort as possible.

For more information about communicating with developer check your Smashing Magazine’s article on the subject (this article is intended for audience with moderate technical knowledge)

Hopefully this information will help you as you work towards completion of your next web project.

Regards,
Adam Haney
Chief Developer
Casa Nova Designs

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