Lesson 1, Preface

Along with the chapters in Creating a Web Site, we were also assigned to read the preface in our second text, The Principles of Beautiful Web Design.  I actually went ahead and also read the first chapter of this book as well.  While this book is extremely well-written and detailed, to me it is definitely not as user friendly as the main text.  It seems to not be geared toward the novice web designer.  Granted, I realize I read ahead of the preface a bit, which primarily dealt with the idea that good web design is classic.  The first chapter really gets into the nuts and bolts of web design in terms of columns, proportion, text font, etc. I found it a bit intimidating.  But I do wonder about one thing.  There were mentions of several things that should be avoided at all costs, such as flashing banners, etc.  But I wonder, at some point are we going to get in to how the target audience affects what will be effective on a website?  I would think that there are many design components that may, say, appeal more to females than males.  And I would think if it was a website primarily for a younger audience, a flashing banner might be attention-grabbing in a good way.  But this reading assignment did really get me to thinking about what message I want to convey to the different people that may visit my site.