Synopses & Reviews
Net Workprovides adetailed study of the work of web designers.It drawson empirical research carried out from the birth of web design as an area of work in the 1990s to its professionalization in the twenty-first century and addresses the politics of building an inclusive WWW for people of diverse abilities.
Review
'With rigor and heart, Helen Kennedy demonstrates that ethical decisions are interwoven into the labor of web design, making the work meaningful for designers and the internet more accessible for users. She successfully balances a critical yet hopeful tone in theorizing cultural labor in the new economy.' - Vicki Mayer, Tulane University, USA
Synopsis
A detailed study of the work of web designers, drawing on empirical research carried out from the birth of web design as an area of work in the 1990s to its professionalisation in the twenty-first century.
About the Author
Helen Kennedy is Senior Lecturer in New Media in the Institute of Communications Studies at the University of Leeds in the UK. She has contributed numerous articles to journals such as Media, Culture and Society, The Information Society and Ephemera and is co-editor of Cyborg Lives? Women's Technobiographies (2001). She also teaches web design and occasionally designs websites.
Table of Contents
List of Figures and Tables
Acknowledgements
PART I: FRAMING WEB DESIGN
A Book About Web Design
A Framework for Thinking About Web Design
A Brief History of Web Design
PART II: ETHICS AND VALUES IN WEB DESIGN
Web Standards and the Self-Regulation of Web Designers
The Fragile Ethics of Web Accessibility
Free Labour: Web Designers' Ethical Responses to User Activity
Narrow Fame: Micro-Celebrities Making Good of Conditions Not of Their Own Making
Hope and the Ethical Future of Web Design
Notes
Bibliography
Index