Explanation for the Design of this Home Page

Status: A comment about how some of my home page has changed.

As I've edited my home page over and over, it's gradually changed. Here are some principles that might not be immediately evident:

• Status and address information should be included.
• It should be evident what a document is.
• It's nice for a tool-user to be able to use a tool as a tool rather than as an end in itself. Thus, it's nice if significant information is available immediately on the screen without scrolling or browsing. A quick menu may be helpful.
• Address and status, if located at the beginning of the page, would take up more space than necessary.
• For tool and reference use, it's nice if the last edited time is immediately available.
• It's easier to reach particular selections if there isn't too much initial written information.
• Originally, I used a table of contents only, then a quick menu based on words with one or two icons, then the words were put on color buttons, and finally the buttons were redrawn to include pictures. A few of the pictures are based on Visual Basic 3.0 icons.
• The multitude of colors used as the background colors for the icons were intended to be red, blue, and green based with each of those colors representing a category or type of information. Now there are three background colors with labels for how the grouping was selected. Probably some of the choices are not the best - like information about HTML being paired with goals and legal and music information being grouped with how to accomplish or examples of computer-related tasks.

What the icons mean

• The house with trees represents the home page.
• The target represents the goal of the home page and my WWW efforts.
• The overhead view of a "house" represents the overview of the WWW site.
• The chalk "lecture" icon is for the present page. Here is some information about my home page.
• The arrows and target show how to reach the goal.
• The earth and binoculars show how to find things.
• The picture of the house has information about creating a home page. It's a reference to other local information about creating a home page at Texas A&M University.
• The co-workers at the computer table offers training services in return for what I think is very reasonable pay! Another purpose is to show that I consider some use of the Net as a money-making endeavor to be OK.
• The flame is from Delphi's Windows icon. Delphi is a kind of "Visual Pascal".
• The broadcast antenna is for network news.
• The HTML icon is for learning about Hypertext Markup Language.
• The computer and chart icon is for information about computer programming.
• The next icon is for my life program. There's an algorithm called "Life", and it creates changing sequences like the one on the icon.
• The sine wave icon is for my testing page. There are a few items there that may be of interest. One is notes about how to show the relationship between subjects and the other is a Windows help file about HTML.
• The icon showing a building is for the Sterling C. Evans Library where I have been employed since 1983.
• The stack of sheets of paper is for a table of contents for my WWW files.