While I've been gone, I've been busy building websites, and building Google gadgets.
I've built a simple site for someone selling motorhomes (RVs) - the site is out of my hands now but you can view a working version of it here. The user group were most likely over 50 years of age. Therefore, in my mind, the navigation, readability and design had to be clear. I included a CSS print style sheet together with links to print pages. (From personal experience, I've found people may like to print "classified ad" type content out to read .)
Another important aspect to this website design was that the owners wanted to be able to edit the HTML themselves (i.e. in this case, add or remove information, without having to upgrade their current hosting plan to include PHP). The site's owners were quite html savvy, so I taught them how to amend their web pages and upload to their site. I used comment tags in the HTML source code to mark points for editing. This meant they could easily find where and how to update their site. I hand-coded the site and did the graphics myself. I had great fun designing the 404 (page not found) page as you can see.
The second site I've built from scratch, and also written the copy for, is for my Google gadgets. My author page in the iGoogle directory has not been updated for some time now. This, and other glitches with the directory, meant people couldn't find all my gadgets. You can now find all my gadgets at widgetweb.co.uk. Gadget wise, I have recently been playing around with content from the BBC - they let you use some of their stuff to build your own stuff, providing you meet certain terms and conditions. Check out my featured gadget.
