Week 7 - Chapter 7 Creating Courseware

The actual design and homepage of the webpage is the most important tool for your online course. It can make or break you. A webpage must have a nice look to it with a simple background and lots of white space. You need consistency and repetition within a website. You also need contrast. Text should be mainly left-aligned (the normal way) and you shouldn't be forced to scroll forever to read things. Be reasonable with your choice of fonts and don't clutter a homepage with lots of links all over. Don't use too many graphics and too much multi-media. less is more. I loved going to http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/webhound/index.html to surf with the webhound for "the good, bad and bandwidth-hogging ugly". This link is a riot and gives you great examples of what not to do. The financial support of the institution you work for will also help determine how you create your site and how professional it may look.