Just as it is true in the commercial world, so it is with all other kinds of institutions: today, you’re nowhere without a website. Hospitals, schools and colleges, government departments and charities - they all seek effective communication with customers and clients through the Web. Not just organisations but individuals, too.

Teacher sites, though, are seldom seen. Given that teachers can use a website for any number of purposes, it’s surprising that, so far, so few of them have their own. Of course, time has something to do with it, but it can be done, and well. For proof, look no further than Clare Usher’s award-winning French language site at www.hughchristie.kent.sch.ukfrench.

What is needed for good site and page design is clear and systematic guidance, of which there is plenty. Initially, many go to the page design wizard, the tutorial that comes with the Web authoring program. But users often find wizards of rather limited scope, good as some are. In which case, a better starting point might be one or more of the online tutorials recommended by BECTA, the government’s lead agency for ICT in education.

Like BECTA’s own at www.becta. org. uk, most of these sites give standard advice like know your audience, don’t overdo the gimmicks, take care with colours and so forth, although some do so with far more imagination and flair than others. While Beyond the Bar (http:webknowhow.net) is a straightforward, solid effort with good tips on typography and screen layout, the opposite is seen in the strenuously groovy Front Page 2002 and the similarly overheated Adobe GoLive Tutorial (both at http:hotwired.lycos.comwebmonkey). It is a shame, because the graphics are as good as the text is painful.

Elsewhere, an unimaginative title does scant justice to the colourful and informative Web Page Design (http:webknowhow.net), while Wanda Wigglebits’s Building a School Web Site (www.wigglebits.com) is, as its name suggests, as chummy as it is helpful.

However good some of these websites are, many could do with a broader perspective, improved graphics and firm editing. In these respects and several others, books are a better bet. The best currently on the market offer crisp instructions, clear and colourful illustrations plus all manner of tips and explanations. In truth, even the most impressive website doesn’t compare. Especially when it comes to publications such as those from Dorling Kindersley. For straightforward explanation and precise information, they are the ones to beat.

Exactly right for beginners, the website chapter in Cooper, Milner and Worsley’s excellent Essential Internet Guide (pound;12.99) is now available in a separate, small format edition as Tim Worsley’s Building a Website (pound;4.99). So confident are the publishers of the book’s quality that it comes with a money-back guarantee. In the same series is Ann Light and Des Watson’s slightly more advanced Enhancing Your Website (pound;4.99), of similar merit, but minus the guarantee - a mystery given each is as good as the other.

Most of the topics and operations covered in these books - explaining and exploring the application, hyperlinks, inserting images, working with cells and so on - are reviewed in Frontpage 2000 User Manual (ENI Publishing, pound;9.99) with some thoroughness, but nowhere near the equivalent sense of purpose or visual appeal. The same is true of Bud Smith and Arthur Bebak’s Creating Web Pages for Dummies (Smith, pound;19.99), which assumes that “Dummies” need a lengthy talking-to on virtually every step instead of simply being shown how to go about it.

Which is precisely the approach adopted by the superb Microsoft Front Page 2002 Step by Step (Microsoft Press, pound;23.99). Augmented by a CD-Rom that holds dozens of practice files, the book guides users through website and page design from the most fundamental points to relatively sophisticated operations like communicating with visitors and connecting a site to a database. The text is unfussy, the layout and illustrations are exemplary and a comprehensive glossary explains technical terms simply but effectively.

Two more books from Microsoft, Julie Adair King’s Easy Web Graphics (pound;15.99) and Easy Web Page Creation (pound;15.99) by Mary Millhollon and Jeff Castrina reach the same high standard. Leaving aside the fact that both titles use the word “easy” rather too loosely, both books go about their business with the kind of flair that makes you first admire then want to emulate their authors’ skills. No CD-Rom is included with either book, but this is made up for by a pleasing layout, useful tips and writing that is friendly without being condescending even, for example, when explaining the intricacies of HTML, the computer language used to create Web pages.

Those who want to use Dreamweaver as a Web authoring application might take a look at the inexpensive Dreamweaver 4 for PCMac (ENI Publishing, pound;4.99). From the publisher’s ‘Straight to the Point’ collection, it lives up to its name entirely at the expense of pleasing presentation.

An expanded alternative, from the same publisher and with the same title, is by Christophe Aubry (pound;14.99). Unfortunately, the page design here has an equally unappealing, pinched look particularly unsuited to a text that deals with design. Better go, therefore, to Gregg Holden and Scott Wills’s Dreamweaver 4 Visual Insight (Coriolis, pound;17.99). It’s systematic, lucid and, while nowhere near the presentational standard of any of the Microsoft books, still good enough to enjoy working from.

More enjoyable still is ICT 4 Learning: WebWhizz (pound;9.99), a CD-Rom that helps teachers guide key stage 2 pupils through the various stages of website design. The program explains tasks through briskly effective tutorials and a comprehensive glossary explains difficult or unfamiliar terms. Add to the program an amusing video (ICT 4 Learning: WebWhizz, pound;9.99) that shows children making their own website, and you have a package that will get teachers and their pupils caught up in webbing for dozens of happy and productive hours.

www.hughchristie.kent.sch.ukfrench www.becta. org. uk http:webknowhow.net http:hotwired.lycos.comwebmonkey http:webknowhow.net www.wigglebits.com