 |
|
|
|
|
|
||
      |
|
||
 |
 |
|
|
|
|||
 |
| Web Style Guide |
| IRT Information |
Required software | Standards & policy | Page anatomy
Text columns | Editable
regions
The way the School of Medicine uses the Web has fundamentally changed. The primary focus of new sites is an audience external to your group, such as prospective students, faculty, researchers, staff and professional peers. The new design brings consistency to users’ experience of School of Medicine sites, facilitating our missions and businesses, and enhancing the prestige of our groups and of the school as a whole.
An Intranet area (coming soon) will be made available for content intended purely for internal audiences. If you have any questions about whether specific content is better served from the public site or the Intranet, please ask Web Help.
Required Software
Dreamweaver or Contribute, two Web development products from Macromedia which are available very economically through Campus Wide Agreement. Pages depend on Dreamweaver Templates to control the format, managed centrally by IRT.
Standards & Policy
This style guide sets presentation standards for the School of Medicine Web. It creates a strong framework for consistency, within which is much room for creativity and unique identity. Not every contingency is covered. New approaches that serve usability are encouraged. IRT might even adopt your approach as a standard. IRT has responsibility and authority over the appearance and substance of all School of Medicine sites and pages, which are subject to review and modification by IRT.
|
 |
|
|
Page Anatomy
Each page has mandatory and optional elements.
What you can't edit yourself
In the illustration, right, the areas you can't change are marked in purple, including the header and footer. The column format of pages also cannot be changed.
What you can edit yourself
In the illustration, above, the areas you can change are marked in green.
The body of page content -- everything between the header and footer -- is editable. References to "maintained locally" throughout this guide refer to areas, items and pages maintained by you, not IRT.
|
 |
|
|
Text Column Formats
The base grid of each page is four grid units, each 175 pixels wide, with 10 pixel gutters. Pages can have three text columns (where the two center grid units are combined) or two text columns (where the three right grid units are combined)
Width Restrictions
Tables, images and other elements within a text column must not be set wider than the column's width in pixels. Elements set too wide will push the horizontal width of the page body out of alignment with the header and footer, making the page look broken or poorly designed. Contact Web Help if you need assistance re-sizing a troublesome element.
Text column widths
- 1 grid unit = 175 (LeftColumn)
- 2 grid units = 360 (CenterColumn)
- 3 grid units = 545 (MainColumn)
- 4 grid units = 730
Editable Regions
Dreamweaver and Contribute prevent editing within templated regions of each page. See the illustrations for area locations. Each editable area has a Dreamweaver name:
|
3
text columns
2 text columns
|
|
|
BreadCrumbs
- Present on every page but the School Home page
- Provides navigation help for users with links to higher levels and school Home
- Uses server-side includes (SSIs) maintained locally
- Contains trigger code, if any, to highlight a tab (more details)
LeftColumn
- Found on almost every page, regardless of overall number of columns
- The right place for navigation links (more details)
- Uses server-side includes (SSIs) maintained locally
- Can also have other information, such as links to announcements, short highlight items, etc. below site links
CenterColumn (3 column pages)
- Central and primary text area, 2 grid units wide, of pages, based on 3col-stationary.html
- Should contain main body text of page
RightColumn (3 column pages)
- Rightmost area, 1 grid unit wide, of pages, based on 3col-stationary.html
- For highlight boxes, related links, news and announcements, basically anything that is not the main body content of the page.
MainColumn (2 column pages)
- Large text area, 3 grid units wide, of pages, based on 2col-stationary.html
- Should contain main body text of page
- Vast majority of site pages should be in this format
