Here at DMXzone we are working hard to get articles from some of the best authors around, and are pleased to say that we'll be getting some brand new material from renowned educator and author Joyce Evans in the very near future. 

Joyce has been training, educating and authoring as well as web designing for the last 10 years. She's spoken at conferences such as Macromedia MAX2003 and TODCON, and has authored numerous books including Macromedia Studio MX bible, Dreamweaver MX Complete Course and Web Design Complete Course. We've got details about her latest publication – Macromedia Fireworks MX 2004 Zero to Hero here. 

At Joyce's personal web site you can see how passionate she is about supporting Web developers - check out the tutorials and reviews of Dreamweaver, Fireworks and other Web design related books and products. 

To provide some background for our readers, we've got an interview with Joyce so you can see how she went from HTML Zero to Dreamweaver and Fireworks Heroine!

Joyce Evans: Educator and Author

Here at DMXzone we are working hard to get articles from some of the best authors around, and are pleased to say that we'll be getting some brand new material from renowned educator and author Joyce Evans in the very near future.

Joyce has been training, educating and authoring as well as web designing for the last 10 years. She's spoken at conferences such as Macromedia MAX2003 and TODCON, and has authored numerous books including Macromedia Studio MX Bible, Dreamweaver MX Complete Course and Web Design Complete Course. We've got details about her latest publication – Macromedia Fireworks MX 2004 Zero to Hero here.

At Joyce's personal web site you can see how passionate she is about supporting Web developers - check out the tutorials and reviews of Dreamweaver, Fireworks and other Web design related books and products.

To provide some background for our readers we've got an interview with Joyce so you can see how she went from HTML Zero to Dreamweaver and Fireworks Heroine!

 

DMXzone: Hi Joyce, Great to be able to chat; I'm familiar with your name from books like your latest Macromedia Fireworks MX 2004 Zero to Hero publication. How did you get into book writing?

Joyce Evans: I never planned on writing. In 1995 I began to learn HTML. I used Homesite and Notepad. I was on a limited budget so I began to write book reviews to obtain the many books I needed. I had never even used a computer before!

 

DMX: What made you want to learn HTML in the first place? I mean what was the driver especially if you'd not used a computer before?

JE: There was a fantastic Web Design forum at the time and everyone said you had to learn HTML if you ever wanted to troubleshoot your work. Plus this was prior to Dreamweaver 1 and the tools available such as Netscape Communicator really were quite bad. My first programs were PageMaker and CorelDRAW, which I used to design brochures.

I quickly moved into learning Web Design. To make a long story short, I had over 200 reviews posted in the first year. While I was learning I worked for free for almost two years.

You see we were traveling full time in our converted bus. I loved the lifestyle! We were in our 30's when we started out and did that for seven years. My husband sold advertising while I learned to use the computer and Web Design. My previous experience has all been in sales but I'm never afraid to learn new things. If I put my mind to it, and I want to do it, I can.

When I was buying Real Estate with nothing down for rental properties, I discovered that I really enjoyed problem solving. Well that is what Web Design is all about - how to make a site that meets the needs of both the client and the user. As well as how to make everything work like you want it to as well as load fast and be accessible.

Web Design sure can be challenging and frustrating at times :-) Between teaching Real Estate classes, home schooling my children and teaching others how to design Web sites, I also discovered I like to teach and help others. That is why I started writing tutorials, I never in a million years thought I would ever write. I'm not a literary writer nor am I a fancy language writer.

But I discovered by just being me (and not trying to be more than I am) my way of teaching appealed to a lot of people. I got an awful lot of nice letters telling how much my straightforward and personal approach helped them.

 

DMX: In the early days how did you practise your skills? I always find things don't sink in until I do something with a real focus.

JE: While I learned Web Design I practiced everything on my children's sim horse game site http://www.horseadventures.com/). It was so popular I had to shut it down. It was before I knew how to use a database and we were getting over 200 emails a day. I have kept the home page but my daughter has now outgrown it :-)

I also used the site to teach children Internet ethics such as not stealing images or linking to others images. I would also help them learn how to build their own sites.

 

DMX: As a writer and an educator it's important to know what skills people really need, how do you stay close to the cutting edge?

JE: I have to maintain my own education. It can be very frustrating to know where to expand at times. Since I primarily teach and use Macromedia products I choose to concentrate on building my skills with the Studio MX applications.