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7. Page Design Standards
The use of design standards for web pages serves a number of purposes. They can promote the organisation by ensuring pages are identified with the site. Consistent navigation bars and links aid the user in locating information on the website. Standards can be used to maintain the quality of page appearance and design and ensure that the wide range of browsers can view all pages. Accessibility and conformity with externally imposed standards from the government and CSIRO, including the metadata requirements discussed earlier.
The ATNF currently employs very loose design standards for web pages. A number of pages are based upon a template that uses server side includes. Many pages depart from the template. The system, as a whole, is not consistent and the design is often outdated. The following strategies are designed to apply some of the benefits of consistent page design standards to the ATNF website.
7.1 New Home Pages
The home page will require changes in line with the restructuring of the website as discussed in section 3. The new design will probably incorporate feeds from the News and What's On databases. The public home page will be designed with appearance in mind as well as functionality, whereas the inner home page, as a "working page" will include more information content.
7.2 Templates
Templates will be created to aid web authors and to maintain consistency of design standards throughout the site. The templates will contain common elements such as navigation bars and titles as well as metadata and other header information. Templates may need to be created for document creation software such as Microsoft Word and LaTeX.
7.3 Common Title/Navigation Bars
One component of the site templates that warrants inclusion is common title and navigation bars. It is imagined that this would consist of a title graphic naming the ATNF/Observatory, a CSIRO graphic and navigation links listed horizontally below. A standard bar would ensure that users could easily identify the content as belonging to the ATNF and allow them to navigate the same way across the entire site. The bars should appear on as many pages as possible, exceptions might include documents converted from PowerPoint.
It may be desirable if similar navigation bars appear across all observatory sites, with the title graphics and colour scheme modified for each. Certain subsections of the site may also have similar changes made to incorporate a different look and feel, for instance education or the visitors' centre.
7.4 Cascading Stylesheets
The use of shared cascading stylesheets for the formatting of web pages is encouraged. Stylesheets offer the opportunity to centrally manage and maintain the appearance of the site and move away from non-standard and finicky FONT tags and similar. Formatting can also be a laborious task for page authors, so this should make design pages easier.
7.5 Graphics Library
The provision of a library of graphics, icons, and buttons will also help to maintain a consistent look and feel throughout the site. It should also simplify the task of searching for appropriate graphics to add to a page.
7.6 Clean-up Scripts
It may be useful to write scripts to automatically insert standard tags into an HTML document, especially where it is difficult to manually add such tags. An example might be pages created by Microsoft Word. Either during the uploading the document or as a cron job a script might be run to insert the appropriate metadata and standard template tags. This is not an ideal solution, as the process may not work for all output and the scripts must be maintained. One particular program that is recommended is HTML Tidy, which aids in producing code that adheres to the HTML standards.
7.7 Published ATNF Design Standards
The documentation of standards and style guides for web pages should assist authors in producing quality output. The guides will cover areas such as required tags, the use of templates and accessibility guidelines to ensure the page is readable by those with access to older technology or who suffer a physical impairment.