Web Team: CAES Web Style Guide
Bringing CAES Information to One Venue, One Look, One System
The vision for the future of the CAES Web presence is to have a standard look and feel, predictable navigation and tools, and a consistent approach to Web design throughout the college. The College Web Team has created a system of templates, stylesheets, and guidelines to encourage the widespread adoption of this new identity.
Use of the template system assures that certain elements will remain the same throughout all CAES Web sites, while leaving specific areas open for individual department/unit/office interpretation. College templates are designed to:
- Comply with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act as well as UGA and Board of Regents policies regarding accessibility.
- Provide hidden tools for text readers, access keys for quick browsing, alternative stylesheets for various media, and a table-free layout that will break-down logically for text-readers and antiquated browsers.
- Rely heavily on attached stylesheets to provide the look-and-feel, layout, and other essential elements.
- Allow for major site-wide changes if they become necessary.
The CAES Web presence was formerly made up of a multitude of sites in as many isolated locations (due to multiple servers, internal server structure, etc.). The new CAES Web presence strives to include all CAES sites under its umbrella - this includes departmental sites, special interest groups, extension resources and so on. As new and current sites are wrapped into the new CAES template system, they will become part of the larger college resource.
It is recommended that all CAES pages adopting the new templates be housed on the CAES Web server, within www.caes.uga.edu . Being a part of this site structure will ensure technical support for Web issues, access to such key files as the templates and stylesheets, and training as necessary. Alternative URLs are still possible and we will help you migrate these.
Strengthening the new CAES Web search is a priority. Essentially, this function searches all sites within www.caes.uga.edu . As more sites are added into this structure, the search engine will return more results for our college.
We hesitate to distribute templates to external servers as it will begin a mass duplication of effort. The CAES Web site, templates, and stylesheets are under constant review and are adjusted periodically. Adjustments to templates within www.caes.uga.edu will automatically update associated pages while pages residing on outside servers must be handled individually. Moving templates to external servers would also sever ties to support, accessibility guidance, and essential technology embedded in this system.
Training and support materials for template usage are currently being assembled and created. We expect to resume training on Macromedia Contribute in early 2006. Until that point, it is best to work with a member of the College Web Team to redesign your site into this new look and include your site in the new system. Further instructions will follow on an individual basis.