Lamp Training

Up to the minute training
in emerging web technologies

Web Usability and Standards

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Our Usability and Standards training is designed to let technical practitioners incorporate best practice into their development. It is unique in being aimed at programming and technical design staff. While we look at issues such as design research, and information architecture, every topic is covered with the needs of developers in mind.

We provide two types of usability and standards training. Our Introduction to Usability and Standards course is a two day high-level course: covering developing for usability and interoperability, the full range of current and future web standards, and their practical implications. Each topic is covered technically, but without detailed analysis. This course is particularly suitable for both developers and technical management, and is the perfect foundation for an organization-wide standards and best-practice policy.

Web Usability and Standards Course Options

For more in-depth training, including detailed exercises and practical development, we offer a mix-and match range of modules on Usability, and specific web Standards

HTML, XML and XHTML This half-day module covers the infrastructure technologies behind the web. We focus on standards-compliance (including standards variants) and browser compatibility, covering everything from basic syntax through semantic tags to advanced topics such as microformats, XML namespaces and browser XHTML compatibility.

Advanced XML For teams that will work in more detail with XML we have a full-day program covering advanced XML topics such as XML querying (XPath / XQuery, CSS selectors and E4X), the DOM, and schemata (including DTDs).

CSS Keeping design and content separate using stylesheets leads to better reuse of content and wider interoperability. Unfortunately the interaction of HTML and CSS is complex and browser-dependent, and poor practice can easily negate any theoretical benefits. This full-day module gives participants the grounding they need to make good development decisions. It covers the current CSS standards, page layout, browser incompatibilities (along with their solutions), styling idioms and CSS for print.

Ajax Logo

JavaScript and AJAX Our JavaScript for Usability module provides the training your team needs to develop usable and deployable JavaScript / Ajax. We assume a basic knowledge of JavaScript for this module (our JavaScript and Ajax course is suitable for developers who need to start from scratch) and can structure it over one or one and a half days, depending on the JavaScript experience of the participants. Topics include platform differences, graceful degredation, accessibility issues, Hijax development and server-side implications.

Accessibility The last few years have seen international legislative efforts to make web-content and web-applications accessible by those with physical and learning challenges. This full-day module provides complete training for meeting legal requirements and wider best-practice in this area. Participants have chance to see assistive technologies in action. consider the full range of user-requirements, and work through accessibility standards and their implications for the development process.

Our Training

Our courses are intensive and practical, focussing on timely web-technology issues for professionals who need to get stuff done.

Course Materials

Our training philosophy can be expressed in 4 simple principles:

1. Doing is better than just hearing. Our courses are structured in a bite-sized way, with a concept presentations, followed by guided student work on exercises and well-written, robust example code.

2. Training is a long-term process. We continue to provide support for your participants for three months after the course is over, answering syllabus-related questions as they arise. We don't leave our course participants in the lurch when they come to apply their learning to real world problems.

3. Not all experts can teach. Not all teachers are experts. Minimum qualifications for our instructors are expert-level skills in their subject with a great ability to communicate their knowledge and mentor skill-development.

4. It's your course. Everyone has different needs of their training program. We work hard to understand the demands your work will put on your technical skills, and tailor programs to help you. We are happy to include your real-world problems as examples and exercises.