Category Archives: Uncategorized

Style Guide

We have started a style guide for editing in Drupal.  Here is what we have, so far, but please visit the documentation for updates.

Layout

  • The “juice bar” feature is a convenient place for sharing stories about your department or office, but remember that it takes up quite a bit of space at the top of your page. Laptop users, without scrolling, will see the main navigation, your banner and the juice bar, and that’s about it. So, use the juice bar only if you have something important to say that can’t be handled in any of the other content areas.
  • Check out and follow the advice from White Whale’s Janie Porche on what kinds of content to use on different parts of the page using this Content Guide.

Text

  • When in doubt, check out the Middlebury Editorial Style Guide for usage questions: how to type a phone number, what to capitalize, etc.
  • Use as few typefaces as possible. For most of your text, use the regular paragraph style, and select just one or two display (headline) typefaces.
  • Avoid long banks of type when possible. If you must have a page with a lot of type, use lots of subheads.
  • Use display (headline) faces sparingly, and never for lengthy banks of type.
  • The “opening paragraph” style should only be on the home page of your site. And since it’s designed to appear below a banner which includes the name of your department/office, you don’t need to use a headline on top of this.
  • Use the “opening paragraph” text only for your opening paragraph. And that paragraph should be just three or four lines, and not more than eight.

Images

  • Don’t use images as decoration. Images should be chosen to accomplish something specific.
  • Make sure images are of reasonable quality, and sized appropriately. (No huge head shots! No tiny panoramas!)
  • To display a large number of images, use the photo gallery content type.

Color

  • Pick a color palette you like, and then stick with it for your entire site.

Content Guide, Check-in Reminder, Usability

A PRESENT FROM WHITE WHALE

During the WorkSessions, we have heard questions like “What should go in a sidebar?” and “Is this something that should go in the Carousel?” To help us answer these questions, White Whale has provided us with a content guide, and they have turned it into a VISUAL.  Attached is a content guide that will help you answer some of these questions, and make choices as to the types of content that can be displayed in different locations on the page, and will help us, as a community, to create a consistent look-and-feel throughout the site.

Thank you Janie and Tonya for putting this together!

CHECK-IN REMINDER

Thank you to everyone who has already filled out the check-in form. We have heard from some but not everyone, so this is a reminder to fill out the form so that we can make an informed decision before Thanksgiving break.

https://sites.middlebury.edu/webredo/your-ideas/web-makeover-check-in/

WHAT WILL YOUR VISITOR”S DO?

December 15th is right around the corner.  Between this date and the launch, we will be looking at the site to see if we have made an intuitive, useful resource for our community.  We have already heard questions like “Where is the link to WebMail?” and “How do I find Faculty Office hours?”  What we would like to hear from you is how people use YOUR site.  What information do they need to find?  How will it be used?

We have created another simple form, where you would chose the constituent (or add one) and write a task that a visitor would need to complete.  We’ll gather these and incorporate them into the user testing.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dEZ5Nk8wbEZrYWt3T0xUaUdqQzF0MlE6MA

On-line directory desiderata

The College is going to stop printing the directory, beginning this Fall. We are doing so for obvious reasons: to save money, to save considerable staff time (a form of money), and to lower our carbon footprint. In conversations leading up to this decision, many people had many very fond things to say about the printed directory, and will mourn this loss. As we head into the design phase of the web makeover project, this seems like a great opportunity to try to understand exactly what is it about the printed directory that is superior to the on-line directory, since we will be modifying the on-line directory as part of the overall makeover.

Here’s what we’ve heard so far about what the print directory does better than the on-line directory

  1. It allows you to quickly scan through the staff of a department to figure out who is responsible for what, and provides general contact information for a department.
  2. It allows you to easily find someone’s home phone number, unlike the online directory where home phone numbers are only viewable if the person wants to show them and has taken the extra step to set their configuration on the Change Information form.
  3. It allows you to look up the hometown for a student.
  4. It allows you to look up the on-campus address for a student.
  5. It identifies the chair and academic coordinator for each academic department.
  6. It allows you to limit your search to just students, or just faculty/staff.
  7. It can be used when you aren’t near a computer.

This is just a preliminary list of issues that a new design would need to address; we are posting this as a means of encouraging those of you who worry about the loss of the printed directory to let us know what we can do to make the on-line directory as good, or even better!, than the printed directory. Please use the comments on this post to record your thoughts. (And include examples of other great directories if you happen to know of them.)