Basic HTML

HTML Web Design Training Course Overview

This HTML5-based basic/beginners course provides the fundamentals that underpin everything else in web design and web development. It can be used as:

• A starting point for learning web design and development
• Or to tie together and underpin ‘on the job’ learning

Absolute beginners in Web Design typically take this course in conjunction with our Basic CSS course. Taking both 1-day courses together, is the exact equivalent of taking our 2-day Web Design Essentials course.

This HTML training does not cover everything in HTML. That would take days to teach and years to master. But you will learn the essentials, i.e. the bits used:

• Every day
• On every web page — e.g. headings, boxes, links, images, etc.
• On every website — e.g. page structures, tables and forms, etc.

Please note, however, this course does not cover the styling and layout of web pages with CSS. That is provided by the follow-on Basic CSS course.

The course teaches students to code HTML to W3C standards first, i.e. design to the standards and test for compliance, before tweaking for aesthetics or optimising for particular browsers — easily the most pleasant, efficient and profitable way of working.

It is an HTML5 course, since virtually all new sites are encoded in HTML5. But, the purpose of the course is not to teach you HTML5, per se. It is, rather, to teach current best practice for setting the foundations of all modern web design. So, if you are already a web designer, and merely want to know the new stuff in HTML5, take a look at our HTML5 beginners course

Course Objectives

On completion of this HTML course, you will be able to:

• Build the key components of a web page in bullet-proof fashion
• Build a functionally complete website
• Build web pages and sites which function reliably:
  • In every browser — cross-browser compatibility
  • For all types of user — usability and accessibility
  • On all media — e.g. PCs, tablets, phones, audio, printers, etc.
  • On the web and in email [1]
• Write HTML which is
  • Easily readable — by users and software alike
  • Easily editable and debugged — by hand, if necessary
  • Fast-loading
• Write HTML which complies with the following standards:
  • HTML5, XHTML 1.0 and HTML 4.1 — for data encoding
  • W3C WCAG and WAI-ARIA — for accessibility
  • CSS2.1 and CSS3 — for styling and visual design.
• Understand why HTML 4.1, XHTML 1.0 and HTML5 work the ways the do
• Appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of HTML5, XHTML 1.0 and HTML4.1

Note — The HTML written in this course should function perfectly in email, but you will need to learn additional tricks if you want rich visual designs to display identically across the full range of dodgy email client software. Our follow-on courses in HTML for Email and CSS for Email are designed to teach you those workarounds.

Target Audience

• Anyone who wants to build a quality web site
• Any web professional — who wants to express themselves better, e.g.
  • Web content authors
  • Web designers
  • Web developers
  • Web marketers

Training Pre-requisites

Basic computer literacy, e.g. the ability to:

• Easily find and save files on a file system hierarchy
• Control menu-driven applications
• Avoid panic in the face of an unfamiliar application interface

Training Style

The two key learning goals for this course are to enable students to:

• Understand the fundamental concepts which underlie all web design
• Embed that understanding through meaningful practical work

As such, the course is heavily focused on giving students the opportunity to practice each concept and skill as soon as they have learnt it.

Hands-on practical work and exercises make up roughly half of the lesson time on this day. Hands-on exercises occur at the end of every session, and at intervals during each session.

All the exercises in this course require HTML to be hand-coded in a text editor — an essential skill for fixing and avoiding fundamental web design problems — although students will typically work on pre-prepared HTML pages and only add or modify the bits needed to practice a particular skill.