Redesign of the homepage.
It has been two years since the homepage has been redesigned. Does it need to
be redesigned to change the look or is it OK the way it is? Most like it as
is, but agree it's not intuitive to navigate for the outside user. It was agreed
that a redesign to make the overall navigation easier, perhaps by condensing
the navigation links and adding some secondary level pages, is needed while
preserving the top banner look so lower level pages only need minimal reworking.
Everyone is encouraged to look at other vet school sites, for example Cornell and Purdue, to find a home page with navigation they like and submit it to the listserv at cvmbswebmasters@colostate.edu. The Net Vet website at http://netvet.wustl.edu/vschool.htm provides links to Colleges of Veterinary Medicine.
What should be done with the EM center page at http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/emcenter/? It will soon be a year since it was shut down. Per Tom, the equipment is still here and the page is needed to refer users to the new contacts responsible for the equipment. The sub-directories are needed as well. The site will remain linked from the college home page and Linda will add the missing footer.
First level pages off the homepage. First level pages off the CVMBS homepage are all over the place on style and look. Jamie would like the committee to discuss if first level page consistency is important. Should the pages at least contain the CVMBS logo, an image and be nicely formatted? Currently some pages are just text, some pages don’t have the CVMBS logo, some pages don’t look like they have any relation to the college and some have very little content. Webmasters were encouraged to review the pages listed below and bring comments to the meeting.
Pages to look at
http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/cvmbs/careers.html Just
text no images
http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/development/ Looks
great no logo different colors so without even a logo it is hard to tell you
are still here at CVMBS. http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/cvmbs/FacultyResource.htm Just
text
http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/cvmbs/ResearchAdministration.htm Just
text
http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/cvmbs/thiswk.html Just
text
http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/netserv/ Just
text busy looking
http://www.vth.colostate.edu/ Hard
to read
http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/webmaster/ Just
text busy page
http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/clinsci/ce/ Just
text lots of information – this should be an eye catching set of pages
since it is where people come to give us money. http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/clinsci/ce/annualconf.html Just
text
https://advancing.colostate.edu/csu.asp?VETMEDMASTER No
CVMBS logo
Outreach
http://www.argusinstitute.colostate.edu/ No
CVMBS logo
http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/aphi/ No
CVMBS logo
http://www.hicahs.colostate.edu/ No
idea on this page - no logo no link back to CVMBS
http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/mip/leprosy/ no
logo no link back to CVMBS
http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/cvmbs/musculoskel.htm no
images just text
http://ehasl.cvmbs.colostate.edu/ no
link back to CVMBS no CVMBS logo
http://www.colostate.edu/depts/equine/graduate/orthopedics/Default.htm This
looks like a main campus page
http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/cvmbs/hypo.html no
image just text
http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/microbiology/tb/top.htm not
real sure what to make of this page
Residency Programs do not have images and are just lots of text, maybe better
formatting or something to make the pages more interesting. http://equinescience.colostate.edu/repro/ no
CVMBS log no link back to CVMBS
Comments: Sallie mentioned with the new redesign idea, many of these pages would shift to a lower level and may not need to conform to the CVMBS templates. Some webmasters won't want to redesign their pages, i.e. Development and Leprosy Research Support. Most don’t see a need for pictures on many of these pages, especially for the content-oriented pages such as http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/clinsci/ce/ or http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/cvmbs/careers.html.
Specific comments:
The Equine Hospital page designed by outside web designer Amanda Simmons,
is now maintained by Charlie. Overall comments are that the design is very nice.
Everyone likes the top banner photograph(s). It's hard to read the white text
on green in the content area. For now, Charlie will update links in the left
navigation to the existing Equine Reproduction pages and add missing faculty
pictures and information.
Clinical Sciences CE page maintained by Lori Williams:
good info, well-maintained, broken link to DIA, possibly add colored background
to the two list areas on the left and right of the page.
Musculoskeletal Research Program page maintained by Linda Tarnoff: Charlie has
the Ruminant page at http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/clinsci/srcol/ ready for
Linda to link.
Biomedical Sciences home page: Sallie has been encouraged by the department head to make changes by adding pictures and wanted to know how far the department level pages can deviate from the CVMBS template. To maintain consistency for identity purposes, yet allow for creativity, it was decided that the four department level pages should maintain the design elements of the CVMBS Web Style Guide such as the overall page layout, look, and color scheme, specifically the following:
- Top banner with CSU logo, college and department name and CVMBS caduceus and the original six links from the College home page top banner: CSU Home, CSU Directory, CVMBS Home, Site Index, Students, and WebCT.
- Left-hand navigation with no resizing or different font styles allowed. Text should be left-justified.
- Content area with no additional columns, resizing of area, or different font styles allowed. Only use mark-up from the CSS. Text should be left-justified.
- Footer with text centered and no resizing or different font styles allowed, only use mark-up from the CSS. Text should be centered.
- It is acceptable to add photos, rotating photos, collages, movies and colored text boxes in the designated "content" area.
Jill showed us "How To Resize Images for the Web And Maintain Original Sharpness" in Photoshop CS using the "Bicubic Sharper" feature new in version CS. If you've ever resized images in Photoshop from large HxW dimensions to something small for a web page, you may notice how the resulting image is sometimes blurry and loses detail from being crunched down so small. With the "Bicubic Sharper" option, images retain more of their sharpness.
"Bicubic Sharper" is one of the two new resampling methods added to version CS (version 8) along with "Bicubic Smoother" which is good for smoothing out images which typically get blocky or pixilated when enlarged. "Bicubic Sharper" is the best setting for maintaining sharpness when resizing to a smaller size. Jill used a picture of a lion submitted for the recent Insight magazine article that needed to be resized. First she duplicated the image and resized it using "Bicubic". Then she duplicated the original image again and resized it using "Bicubic Sharper". A comparison of the two images side by side showed the second retained much more detail, in this case, the lion's whiskers, eye and fur, especially around the mane.
An additional step is to use the Sharpen Tool over selected areas of focus such as the eyes, lashes, nose, and whiskers. Be careful, the Sharpen Tool can introduce unwanted artifacts or white jaggy edges if used at full strength, i.e. 100% or stroked over the same area multiple times. In the Options Bar for the Sharpen Tool use the Strength slider to dial in a lower percentage before you start sharpening the area. If it's too much, you can Edit > Undo (CTRL + Z), reduce the strength and try again. Usually one stroke across the area takes care of it. In most cases, you wouldn't want to sharpen any of the background, only the areas where you want to draw attention. For people and animals, it's usually the eyes.
Resizing/Resampling Algorithms
in Photoshop |
|||
Too blurry |
Better |
Too Sharp |
Just Right |
This demo was based on the photoshop tutorial by Jennifer Apple titled "How to Resize Images and Maintain Original Sharpness" at http://www.photoshopsupport.com/tutorials/jennifer/bicubic.html.
Side note: Photoshop CS2 (version 9) was just released this month.