University of Aberdeen Web Team

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University of Aberdeen Web Team

• Mike McConnell

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About the University web site

• 1 main central server holding 90 of content
• circa 500,000 pages
• central pages controlled by Web Team
• departmental/sectional pages notionally
  independent - historically maintained by large,
  devolved body of web authors
• non-mandatory corporate style for depts

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About the University web site

• design and maintenance increasingly ceded to Web
  Team
• increasing uniformity of navigation and
  appearance
• loose/flexible corporate style established
• ever-increasing centralisation of data and
  joined-uppedness

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About the Web Team

• 1 manager, 5 web developers
• 2 core, 4 paid for by income generation
• charged service for non-core activities
• range of skills HTML, PHP, MySQL, graphic
  design
• over 2/3 of University are clients
• range of external clients

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Our standard working practice

• XHTML 1.0 - Validation
• proper use of structural tags
• ltMETAgt information included where possible
• server side includes (SSIs)
• PHP and MySQL
• open source, non-proprietary
• minimum A accessibility
• (latterly) print-only style sheets

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Central pages where we were

• circa 350 central pages directory services
• mixture of styles
• nested tables
• various ages of code 3.2 XHTML 1.0
• lack of impact of news and events
• navigational structure not always apparent

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Central pages where we are

• standard (Dreamweaver) templates
• uniform navigation uniform style
• CSS2 box model SSIs
• XHTML 1 (Strict)
• minimum A accessibility mostly AA
• dynamic news and events content on home page

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Corporate style elsewhere

• no mandatory web style per se, BUT
• specific logotype
• white/light backgrounds
• standard header and footer
• standard University links

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Supporting departmental maintenance

• Dreamweaver templates
• Contribute
• data separated from content CSS flexibility
• extensive use of SSIs, both locally and globally

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External clients

• commercial and non-commercial
• full-scale to part time support
• hosted externally and internally

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Scope of work

• revised home page 1 page
• designs for main navigational pages circa 25
  pages
• templates for departmental home and sub-pages 2
  pages
• additional pages including jobs, news and alumni
  information circa 3 pages
• all associated graphic design, validation and
  accessibility testing

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Timescales

• Weeks 1-4 initial designs validation, usability
  and accessibility testing
• Week 4 present initial draft designs options in
  HTML format
• Weeks 4-7 amendments preparation of templates
  validation, usability and accessibility testing
• Week 8 testing of pages in native environment
  launch of pages

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Questions?
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Technologies

• UNIX Apache 2.0
• PHP Version 4.3.7
• MySQL 4.0.20
• Dreamweaver templates
• Contribute 2.0 and 3.0