Web Developer or WYSIWYG?

Why Is A Web Developer Any Better Than A WYSIWYG?

So, you’re thinking about a small website and you really don’t have much money to get started. Looking at this WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) program, it seems to be able to do everything you want… and it’s much cheaper than paying someone.

The question is why would you use a professional rather than the program?

Planning

In the planning stage a professional will define the purpose of your site.

This purpose defines:

* what will be included

* how much content will be included

* how many pages will be used

Without a plan a website can become a random and ineffective group of pages with masses of information which a user will never look at. If the user does not engage with the site, the purpose is not achieved.

• When you use a WYSIWYG you have to do your own planning without help.

Designing

The next step is the design of a page which will be seen by your users. The use of space, type of layout and navigation should be based around the purpose of the site. What do you want the user to do, and in what order? Good design can make the difference between a site which people return to over and over and one which is unbearable to look at for two minutes.

A professional will incorporate your ideas and existing branding to create an appropriate webpage. However they will also be able to use their experience to include navigation and other web specific aspects of the design which a non professional might not consider.

· Design in a WYSIWYG is limited to the templates created by the program, which may not suit the site you wish to create.

Validation

Validation is a way to make your site comply with standards. Standards are a set of rules created by browsers such as Firefox, Opera and Chrome to standardise how webpages look when they are written by the browser to the screen. It is important to comply with standards because they ensure the page designer knows that the way they see the site is the way the user will see the site.

• WYSIWYG programs do not create standards compliant sites and do not include validation tools for the user.

Interactivity

Some sites have what are called content management systems (CMS). A CMS is a system which uses a database to store information on the page. The owner can log in to their site and change information to update it.

• A WYSIWYG cannot create the system which is needed to run a content management system.
• While a basic page can be done with a WYSIWYG, sites which need to be updated regularly will cost less with an upfront investment in a system which allows the page to be easily updated.

Changes

Sites which do not require regular updating will at some stage require changes. These changes may be large or small and include:

* Changes to basic information - such as an address or phone number

* Changes to products

* Redesign of page

* New content being added

* Old content being removed

* New pages being added

* Old pages being removed

* More functionality or features being added

A professional web developer would have a finite contract with you for the development of the page. Returning to them for changes will cost more money. However, it is likely that returning to the same developer a customer would be offered a discount as the developer is already familiar with them and the site.

Okay, so you made your site with a WYSIWYG and now you want to change something.

· Some WYSIWYG’s will allow you to make changes to your site. However, you will need to be able to use the complicated features of the program.

· Many WYSIWYG’s will make the process so difficult that you may as well redo the site from scratch.

Problems

Technology always has some problems. Webpages are no exception. Problems which you may encounter include: pages, pictures or content which do not load, javascript features which will not work, layouts which do not look the way they are supposed to, emails which can not be sent. Some problems are caused by idiotic or malicious users while some are glitches in the system.

One of the advantages of using a professional developer is that they are aware of potential problems and have addressed them. Many issues can be avoided by including a few extra pieces of computer code.

• A WYSIWYG however, does not have the ability to anticipate and avoid potential problems on your behalf.

The main benefit however is that if a problem occurs the professional will be able to correct it. A site created with a WYSIWYG has two options.

1. Correct the error yourself - that is if you can work out what the problem is and have the time to learn enough computer code to fix it.
2. Hire a professional - a bit late, this is likely to cost you a lot because the developer has to go through the disorganised computer code created by the WYSIWYG in order to find and correct the problem. A time consuming and laborious job.

Domain / Hosting

A domain is your address, like a piece of real estate on the Internet. Hosting is paying a company to run your website on their computers. When using a professional you will be able to have your questions about obtaining domain names and hosting answered by them. Your contract with the developer may include an option to have the developer arrange these things on your behalf.

The final step in any development process is putting the site onto the Internet. This is called uploading or launching the site. A developer will do this for you.

• A WYSIWYG does not give you information about domains.
• A WYSIWYG does not give you information about hosting.
• Most WYSIWYG’s do not upload your site for you, if it is possible it will be in the advanced options.

Accountability

When a professional is hired to do a job, they hold responsibility for doing it properly. The developer is accountable for the job they have done.

• A WYSIWYG is a program, it cannot be held accountable for creating an ineffective webpage.

Study Guides - Help Or Hindrance?

Reflections after working on Romulus, My Father

A few years ago the New South Wales English Teachers’ Association declared that Study Guides were not desirable material for students of senior English to use. Having written a number of Study Guides for a reputable publisher I was shocked by this sudden announcement. I don’t know what effect it has had on the publishing industry, but from my point of view no-one seems interested in publishing study guides any more. Was this declaration the result of a serious academic study or was it simply the result of intellectual snobbery? As far as I remember there has been no academic study on the use of study guides, not even a tick box form on the subject to English teachers.

So what were these teachers objecting to? The content and style of study guides themselves? Or perhaps the use young people put them to?

Content and Style

What do Study Guides do that is so heinous and what could they do better?

English study guides traditionally include a number of different chapters which include:

A plot summary

Notes on the author

Notes on background issues in the text

Character analyses

Language analysis

Typical examination questions

A sample essay possibly with a marking scale

Perhaps the idea of a summary being already done for the student is repellant to teachers?

Students at all levels of English use Study Guides. For those doing ordinary levels or struggling with English perhaps as a second language, a summary can give them access to a text. Having a good idea where the plot is headed, of the big picture, helps a lot of people keep going with a book.

For students at higher levels, studying long texts, a summary can help them hold onto a surplus of characters and subplots. At this study level the language demands of nineteenth century literature can be overwhelming, a summary can be useful for tiding students over the difficult passages.

Or is it the presentation of character analyses that offends teachers?

Perhaps it is here that writers can tighten their work. Traditionally, very thin character analyses were presented in study guides and could be problematic if all the students in a class accessed one guide. Analyses need to be thorough, with many possible interpretations considered, especially through questioning. It is not necessarily for the study guide writer to present all the possible ideas about one character, but to assist the student to think of as many of their own as possible.

There is however the increasing problem of writing study guides on memoirs. Finding questions about a person in a memoir as opposed to a character in a work of fiction is fraught with difficulty. A study guide writer can’t just make guesses about a real person’s life or about their intentions, especially if the text is written in a way to disguise the truth. For instance, a study guide writer of Romulus, My Father could not say that there was any possibility Romulus Gaita was interred in a Concentration Camp in World War II. There is no evidence in the text to point to that. But by presenting scrupulous background notes and a few key questions the writer is able to lead students to see more than the memoirist has recorded. A study guide can show that the proximity of the Buchenwald concentration camp system to Romulus Gaita presented him with terrible choices and no matter what decisions he made he would always feel some sort of guilt. He would inevitably be left with bad memories that would haunt him for the rest of his life, no matter what side he took. These would affect his health, but this not spelled out by Raimond Gaita.

Writing about language use for a study guide is a little easier. Students typically need more assistance in this area, especially with the wide interpretation the Board of Studies gives for the word ‘language’. Students need to be constantly reminded that ‘language’ means film techniques and graphic design as well as vocabulary, rhetoric and diction. But in their search for their own supplementary material students have to be well informed so they can write in detail about the language in their own choice of material. In this case, modeling is of key importance, with a sample essay invaluable. Of course, the best teachers are already doing this with their students in class. But not every teacher has the time or feels confident to write essays or creative pieces with every text they teach. Access to the work of other teachers is a great encouragement to the classroom teacher.

Inclusion of essays and marking scales in a study guide can be problematic for a study guide writer. ‘Brilliant’ essays that score highly on the HSC are usually idiosyncratic, rarely following a tight pattern that can be copied. A writer can demonstrate for students how to plan an essay and write a solid piece to cover the question and the outcomes. It is more difficult to demonstrate how to achieve at the highest levels, with suggestions the main process for this. It is of course, always humbling to try and write an essay on the text. Even when the writer chooses the question and outcomes and can tweak the question to fit their material, the difficulty of what is required by the HSC always becomes obvious.

Study guides have not generally included bibliographies or other lists of related texts.

This can be done better: As a result of the changes to the Higher School Certificate English courses in 2000 it is now preferable that study guides do include bibliographies of their reference materials and lists of related texts for the Area of Study and electives requiring support material. My experience in the classroom was that once a number of texts had been suggested to students for use as supplementary material and a rationale provided for their choice, students would understand the process and begin selecting from their own resources. Students rarely used what was suggested in class, but the material was a springboard for their own ideas. Consequently, choosing works to use in study guides as supplementary material should be no problem, as long as students understand the depth of understanding they require to write on the text.

In general I found study guides useful in teaching. They are difficult to write, requiring large amounts of unseen research and analytic thought. For relatively short works they take a long time to produce. And to cover the outcomes of the HSC a writer now needs to include some personal writing which can be even more time consuming and intimidating. Used in conjunction with reviews and literary essays I believe they should be part of the teacher’s resources for any text they teach.

By Glen