Course content

This course introduces students to basic web design using HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). The course will not only present the main building blocks of web development, but it will also discuss how to create a project from scratch following the standards and implementing good practices to make the pages as readable as possible for both humans (Universal Design and Web Accessibility ) and robots (Search Engine Optimisation).

During the course, the students will learn how to use HTML to structure the contents of the site and how CSS is used to tell the browser how the content should look. It will also provide an overview of the different layout CSS modules and how each one of them solved previous problems and added new functionalities.

The course will especially focus on:

• Creating solutions suitable for different screen sizes (responsive design)
• How to implement small building blocks structured in a way that eases the reusability in different places (modular and maintainable codes)
• Implementing standardized solutions (the code should pass validation tests)
• Following and implementing good practices and best recommendations
• Understanding that digital solutions have a carbon footprint

This is an introductory course and hence it does not require any prior knowledge

Learning outcome

Knowledge

The student knows

• The basic principles of web development
• The difference between HTML, CSS and JavaScript
• Different HTML elements to structure content and differences between structural and semantic tags
• The difference between absolute vs relative paths and web project structures
• HTML elements to annotate images and different formats
• The CSS Box model and how to use CSS to style elements
• Colour representation
• CSS layout modules: positioning, layouts and media queries
• CSS layout modules including Flexbox and Grid layout
• CSS Animation
• Validation tools (HTML, CSS, WCAG)

Skill Goals

The student:

• Understands the difference between content and visual elements
• Can use HTML to annotate contents
• Can use CSS to style pages
• Can use the main building blocks in HTML and CSS to create static websites using the proper syntax for those languages
• Can apply simple techniques to reduce the size of the pages and, therefore, its carbon footprint

General Competence Goals

The student can:

• Plan and carry out the development of Web pages and sites from scratch using HTML and CSS
• Use online documentation provided by organisations such as the W3C or the WHATWG to learn new functionalities or understand the current standards
• Use the design to improve the legibility of the pages

Learning methods and activities

• Lectures
• Laboratory work
• Exercises
• Forum discussions in Blackboard

Compulsory assignments

• Oblig 1
• Oblig 2
• Oppgave (Oblig 3)

Specific conditions

Required previous knowledge

The course is limited to students in the programs Bachelor in Interaction Design (BIXD), Bachelor in Web Development (BWU), Bachelor in Graphic Design (BMED) and the one year program in Webdesign (ÅRWEB).

Course materials

Will be stated at the start of the semester.