The World Organization of Webmasters (WOW), located at http://www.joinwow.org, is an organization that provides certification and educational resources to web professionals.  WOW was started in 1996. Anyone interested in a career in web development can join WOW by submitting an application. Instructions for submitting an application are on the website.  A student can join for only $40 a year, and $89 for an individual. 

The WOW Iron Chef Competition sounds like an event I would enjoy attending http://www.webprofessionals.org/community/ironChef/.  It’s a competition for teams of web professionals, and it is held to show the audience the complex web skills the teams possess.

I believe I could use WOW in the future to keep in touch with the latest web development news, perhaps obtain some new skills by signing up for some of their courses, and to become certified through the WOW’s Certified Web Professional (CWP) program.

ASSIGNMENT 3, Chapter 4
Focus on Web Design

A friend recently recommended Sharebuilder.com, which is associated with ING Direct.  The website claims to be a ‘provider of low-cost, easy to use, online investment products and tools’ and it also provides online banking through ING Direct.  The audience is for the casual or beginner investors and people who want to do their banking online.  The website easily reaches its audience by keeping it simple, placing tabs with sub-links right at the top of every screen.  A reader instantly sees the tabs for Investor Education, Research, etc. I’m not an investory beyond contributing to a 401K and found this site interesting and useful, and I can become familiar with stocks, stock prices, DOW, NASDAQ, and S&P 500 without investing any money.

The website colors are orange, dark blue, and light blue on a white background.  The website appears calm with the blues and white, but the orange is used for strong emphasis to certain areas.  Text and text with border are used as links.  There’s enough variation to the link types to keep it interesting, but not so much it’s too busy.  Except for the logos, all text is a san-serif font.  Additional interest is provided with a little animation with key information when a reader moves from one page to another.

I would not have thought to put these colors together, but I think it works.