Jean Rainwater

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Spring Conference June 7, 2002
Enhancing and Managing Your Library Web
Site Issues Resources
Jean Rainwater Brown University Library Web Team
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Presentation Outline

• The Brown Redesign Experience
• Design Issues Resources
• Site Management
• Preparation for the Future

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The Brown Experience

• Staffing for the Web
• Decision to Redesign
• Redesign Process
• Finished Product

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The Web Team
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The Brown Experience Decision to Redesign

• Team Building Project
• Problems with the old site
• - Too few direct links
• - Need to scroll to see choices
• - No consistent navigation
• - Boring!

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The Old Home Page
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The Brown Experience The Redesign Process

• Summer 2000 Whats out there?
• Establish general goals
• Build on individual efforts
• Test Prototype
• Incorporate Feedback
• January 2001 Launch new site

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Design Issues Resources Outline

• Usability Good Bad Design
• Tools Best Practices
• Navigation Conventions
• Accessibility
• Limits of Design

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Design Issues Resources Resources for Good
Design

• Yale Style Manualhttp//info.med.yale.edu/caim/ma
  nual/contents.html
• NCI Usability Sitehttp//www.usability.gov/
• Alert Box (Jacob Nielsen)www.useit.com
  http//www.useit.com/alertbox/
• The Usable Webhttp//www.usableweb.com/
• Web Page Design for Designershttp//www.wpdfd.com
  /

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• http//info.med.yale.edu/caim/manual/contents.html
  

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http//www.usability.gov/
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www.useit.com
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http//www.usableweb.com/
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http//www.wpdfd.com/
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Design Issues Resources Examples of Bad Design

• Web Pages That Suckhttp//www.webpagesthatsuck.co
  m/
• What Would Amazon Do? http//www.fixingyourwebsite
  .com/amazon.html
• Top Ten Design Mistakeshttp//www.useit.com/alert
  box/9605.html

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http//www.webpagesthatsuck.com/
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http//www.fixingyourwebsite.com/amazon.html
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http//www.useit.com/alertbox/9605.html
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Design Issues Resources Design Tools

• Web-Safe Colorshttp//www.lynda.com/hexh.html
• Color Blindness Simulatorhttp//vischeck.com/visc
  heckURL.php3
• Webmonkey Browser Charthttp//hotwired.lycos.com/
  webmonkey/reference/browser_chart/
• Backward Compatibility Viewerhttp//www.delorie.c
  om/web/wpbcw.html
• BrowserSizerhttp//www.applythis.com/browsersizer
  /

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http//www.lynda.com/hexh.html
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http//vischeck.com/vischeckURL.php3
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Webmonkey Browser Chart http//hotwired.lycos.com/
webmonkey/reference/browser_chart/index.html
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http//www.delorie.com/web/wpbcw.html
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http//www.applythis.com/browsersizer/
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Design Issues Resources Best Practices

• On Every Page
• - institutional name - link to home page -
  contact information - alt tags for images -
  date last modified - lttitlegtlt/titlegt
• Ten Good Deeds in Web Designhttp//www.useit.com/
  alertbox/991003.html

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Design Issues Resources Navigation

• Evolving Conventions
• Orientation Tools http//www.qarbon.com/
• Best Practices

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From Navigating the Library Web
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Viewlet Technology http//www.qarbon.com/
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Design Issues Resources Navigation Best
Practices

• Site Map or Index
• Meta Tags http//www.northernwebs.com/set/index.ht
  ml
• Custom Error Pageshttp//www.library.northwestern
  .edu/digital

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Site Search
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http//www.northernwebs.com/set/index.html
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Meta Tags to Invite or Repel Searches
ltmeta name"keywords" content"swords, Rush
Hawkins"gt ltmeta name"description" content"The
Annmary Brown Memorial houses exhibits of
European and American paintings from the17th
through the 20th centuries, the Cyril and Harriet
Mazansky British Sword Collection, as well as
personal mementos of its founder, General Rush
C. Hawkins, and the Brown family."gt
ltmeta http-equiv"Content-Type"
content"text/html charsetiso-8859-1"gt
ltmeta name"robots" content"noindex,nofollow"gt
ltmeta name"description" content"instructions
for excluding search engine robots"gt
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Custom Error 404 Page
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Design Issues Resources Accessibility

• Potential Barriers
• - physical, technological, language
• Potential Solutions
• - Low-Graphic Equivalents - Style vs.
  Structure CSS
• Resources Tools

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Design Issues Resources Resources Tools

• Myths about Web Accessibility http//aware.hwg.org
  /why/myths.html
• W3C Accessibility Guidelines http//www.w3.org/TR/
  WCAG10/
• WAI Quick Tipshttp//www.w3.org/WAI/References/Qu
  ickTips/
• Validators

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http//aware.hwg.org/why/myths.html
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W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0
http//www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/
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W3C How People with Disabilities Use the
Web http//www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/PWD-Use-Web/O
verview.htmlusage
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http//www.w3.org/WAI/References/QuickTips/
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Design Issues Resources Validating Your Code

• HTML Tidy http//www.w3.org/People/Raggett/tidy/
• HTML http//validator.w3.org/
• CSS http//validator.w3.org/
• Bobby http//www.cast.org/bobby/

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http//www.w3.org/People/Raggett/tidy/
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http//validator.w3.org/
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http//www.cast.org/bobby/
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Design Issues Resources Limits of Design

• Dont Lose Sight of Content - Writing for the
  Web
• The user has the last word
• Therefore CSS, XML

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http//www.dartmouth.edu/webteach/articles/text.h
tml
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Site Management

• Documentation
• Housekeeping
• Statistical Analysis
• Communication / Accountability

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http//home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html
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Site Management Statistical Analysis

• Track Traffic Patterns - by hour
  - by geographic location
• - by percent of total traffic
• - hits by directory
• - by operating system
• - by browser

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Analog http//www.analog.cx/
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Preparing for the Future

• Beyond the Basics
• - Scripting / Programming (JavaScript,
  perl/CGI, php, )
• - Database-driven sites
• - Stylesheets
• - XML ...

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The End

• Jean_Rainwater_at_brown.edu
• Web Resources Page http//www.brown.edu/library/t
  est/jmr/rila/handout.html