Add Functionality to Quick, Easy Site Deployment

More than a Web content management system, Octigon President James Smith calls Octane8 a deployment platform. What exactly can you deploy with Octane8? To name a few: public Internet sites, private intranet and extranet sites; sites for the group you'll be collaborating with for the next two weeks; sites with pages that sell; and sites with pages that inform.

Pastore, Michael. Intranet Journal (2003). Design>Content Management>Web Design

Ajax and Your CMS

If a modern day Rip van Winkle woke up after just a year's sleep, he would be stunned by the buzz around Ajax today. Technology is moving very quickly in this space and whether you are a web author, a CMS developer, or a regular web user, Ajax will make some exciting changes to your world.

Downes, Jonathan and Joe Walker. CMSwatch (2006). Articles>Content Management>Web Design>Ajax

Are We There Yet?

It's true: even simple projects get messy. Christina Wodtke comes clean on Swiss Army knives, the writing on the wall, and the untidy glory of the Boxes and Arrows redesign contest.

Wodtke, Christina. Boxes and Arrows (2006). Articles>Web Design>Project Management>Case Studies

ATAG (Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines) Assessment of WordPress

This document assesses WordPress 2.01 against the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0.

Clark, Joe. JoeClark.org (2006). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Content Management

Avoid Edge Cases by Designing Up Front

Better planning and a beefed-up style guide may be exactly what you need to avoid markup derangement or, worse, a dysfunctional product.

Henick, Ben. List Apart, A (2006). Design>Web Design>Project Management>CSS

Big Architect, Little Architect

First came the primordial soup. Thousands of relatively simple single-celled web sites appeared on the scene, and each one was quickly claimed by a multi-functional organism called a "webmaster." A symbiotic relationship quickly became apparent. Webmaster fed web site. Web site got bigger and more important. So did the role of the webmaster. Life was good. Then, bad things started to happen. The size and complexity and importance of the web sites began to spiral out of control. Mutations started cropping up. Strange new organisms with names like interaction designer, usability engineer, customer experience analyst, and information architect began competing with the webmaster and each other for responsibilities and rewards. Equilibrium had been punctuated and we entered the current era of rapid speciation and specialization.

Morville, Peter. Argus Center (2000). Articles>Web Design>Interaction Design>Project Management

Breaking out of the Cubicle: How a Small, Swiss Company Got its Groove On

In the mid-1990s, Makiko Itoh and her partner left New York's cubicle land for a web shop of their own in the suburbs of Zurich. Learn from her tips on running your own web agency.

Itoh, Makiko. List Apart, A (2001). Careers>Management>Web Design

Building a Project Site

Managing a Web site project typically does not follow any clearly defined methods or standards of practice. Although there is a lot of 'how to build a site' information out there, very little on how to manage a Web project actually exists. But a project site could be just the answer you are looking for.

Leonard-Wilkinson, Theresa A. W-edge Design (2001). Design>Project Management>Web Design>Workflow

Building a Vision of Design Success

A common view of vision is that it's something handed down by a leader to the troops. When a redesign goes awry, the troops complain, 'There was no vision.' But the problem goes deeper than either scenario; the problem is that there was no shared vision.

Wodtke, Christina. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Design>Web Design>Management>Collaboration

Business Entity Options

You've mastered Photoshop, Flash, PHP, CSS, XHTML and JavaScript; studied usability, accessibility, and information architecture; and can fake your way through XML. But there’s more to running a web business than that.

Kramer, Scott. List Apart, A (2002). Careers>Management>Web Design

Calculating the Cost of a Large-Scale Web Site

A well-designed information architecture with intuitive organization, labeling, navigation, and indexing systems can significantly reduce the amount of time that users spend blundering through the hierarchies of Web sites and intranets. How much is this time-savings worth? The case is clearest for intranets where the users are your employees.

Morville, Peter. Semantic Studios (1997). Design>Web Design>Content Management>Usability

Capturing Feedback: Building a Tighter Net  

Describes how to use Microsoft FrontPage and Access to build a system for organizing and retrieving feedback from reviewers. The article is intended for those with some experience with Web and database design.

Shoesmith, Kevin. Intercom (2001). Design>Content Management>Web Design>Microsoft Access

Characteristics of Web Site Content

Web site content must be recrudescent, repositorial, refluent, and rectilinear. What? Here's an innovative treatment of the essential attributes of online text. Find out why great web site content generally has these 14 characteristics that start with a "R".

Streight, Steven. Blogger.com (2005). Articles>Web Design>Content Management>Usability

Choices and Challenges: Considerations for Designing Electronic Performance Support Systems    

Introduces the breadth of decision-making required in EPSS design. Explores choices and challenges facing designers in the design process, performance cycle, technology constraints, use of storytelling techniques, evaluation, and success factors.

Carliner, Saul. Technical Communication Online (2002). Articles>Content Management>Web Design>EPSS

A Consumer Survey of CMS Vendor Websites

In March 2003, an online survey was conducted of consumer opinion about CMS vendor websites. This was extensively promoted through the CMS mailing lists, and on key CMS websites such as CMS Watch, the Intranet Focus and Step Two Designs sites. In total, 168 responses were made to this survey, representing consumers from across the globe, and in every type of organisation. This briefing provides a high-level summary of the results of the survey.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2003). Design>Content Management>Web Design

Content Management Systems

Content management systems are key to running an efficient website. Keep the development group out of the loop on updating content, and you will move ever so much faster. 'Content' doesn’t need the same kind of source control that scripts and templates need. Specific design suggestions follow.

Boynton, J.R. Diamond Lane, The (2002). Design>Content Management>Web Design

Content Management Systems and the Single Web Designer

Content Management is the next step in separating structure from design. What began with Cascading Style Sheets and was furthered by XML, is exploding with the CM environment, where billions were spent last year and more billions are expected to be spent in the years ahead. CM Systems come in many shapes: They can be huge or small, simple or very complex. They range from the very expensive (almost $300,000 for enterprise–wide systems like Vignette or Interwoven and $43,000 per server processor for Microsoft’s CMS to almost free (less than $1,000 for Manila and nothing for Zope). But they are all based on the same idea: CM allows designers to focus on design by building templates. Subject experts build content in a separate environment. The server takes the content, inserts it into the correct template and sends it all, neatly wrapped up, to end users.

Ellis, James. List Apart, A (2002). Design>Content Management>Web Design

CoRR: A Computing Research Repository    

This paper describes the decisions by which the Association for Computing Machinery integrated good features from the Los Alamos e-print (physics) archive and from Cornell University's Networked Computer Science Technical Reference Library to form their own open, permanent, online “computing research repository” (CoRR). Submitted papers are not refereed and anyone can browse and extract CoRR material for free, so CoRR's eventual success could revolutionize computer science publishing. But several serious challenges remain: some journals forbid online preprints, the CoRR user interface is cumbersome, submissions are only self-indexed, (no professional library staff manages the archive) and long-term funding is uncertain.

Halpern, Joseph Y. Journal of Computer Documentation (2000). Articles>Content Management>Web Design

Creating An Information Model

An Information Model provides the framework for organizing your content so that it can be delivered and reused in a variety of innovative ways. Once you have created an Information Model for your content repository, you will be able to label information in ways that will enhance search and retrieval, making it possible for authors and users to find the information resources they need quickly and easily.

Hackos, JoAnn T. WebRef (2002). Design>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Web Design

Database-Driven Navigation Bars Using Text and Images

Okay, we've all fiddled with NavBars. In fact, MM's built-in Navigation Bar Builder is pretty sweet for creating NavBars with onMouseOver and onMouseOut behaviors giving your site that professional look. But what if your site changes frequently? One option is to bag the images and stick with a database-driven NavBar that uses a repeat region. We'll look at that approach first. Then we will see how we can replace UltraDev's hardcoded NavBar image behaviors with database-driven links and images.

Princeton University. Design>Content Management>Web Design>Dreamweaver

Decision Support Systems for Environmental Management: Web-Based Communication Modules to Enhance Public Participation  

Nature provides important basic functions for society. Expert systems for integrated knowledge management, so-called decision support systems (DSSs), are tools to manage vegetation, air, soil, and water, and to assure functional integrity of ecosystems, e.g. river basins. Over the past decade sustainability has became the accepted norm to manage our life support resources. This concept is based on responsibility to the “Other” and on participatory consensus-forming dialogues leading to stakeholder models; before, the predominant school of thought has been utilitarianism. Scientists, engineers and technical communicators are challenged to develop feasible technologies to facilitate management, for example to supplement DSSs with virtual libraries and web-forums.

Kaempf, Charlotte. STC Proceedings (2001). Presentations>Web Design>Management>Participatory Design

Designing for Limited Resources

When resources are limited, the design must be optimized to make the best use of all resources. To account for this complexity, it is important to have a clear understanding of both sides of the design equation—what you have to work with and what you are trying to build.

Quinn, Laura S. Boxes and Arrows (2004). Design>Web Design>Project Management

Designing for Web Services

Many technology companies, consultants, and academics are hyping the future of Web services. But how will this background transfer of data between applications affect the user experience?

Lombardi, Victor. New Architect (2002). Design>Web Design>Content Management>User Experience

Designing Wearable Performance Support: Insights from the Early Literature    

According to Gery (1991), an electronic performance support system (EPSS) is an electronic environment available to and easily accessible by employees that is structured to provide online access to all information to permit them to do their jobs with minimal intervention by others. Why do we assume that this support must be provided on a computer? If effective performance support must be 'available' and 'easily accessible,' how can designers provide support to people whose jobs require mobility? Such jobs include (but certainly are not limited to) supervising a manufacturing operation, inspecting foods, and repairing equipment. A designer for any EPSS being developed to support jobs such as these would have to take the employees' mobility into account.

Gobert, Danielle. Technical Communication Online (2002). Design>Content Management>Wireless Web