WEBMASTERS COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES

September 13, 2005

Present: Jamie Bethel, Tom Harmon, Charlie Kerlee, Jill Lenz, Erin Napier, Linda Tarnoff.

Jamie Bethel, Chair, began the meeting at 9:00 am.

New Business

1. Linda Tarnoff reminded webmasters to review their section of the College Brochure at http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/cvmbs/brochure/index.htm every three months or so and update as needed. You should have access to these files to make the updates.
2. Charlie Kerlee mentioned the south campus is being named the "Veterinary Medical Center" (VMC) and a new sign has been made and will be installed soon at the entrance to the VTH. The James L. Voss Veterinary Teaching Hospital building will keep its name. The new name puts the emphasis on a medical center to draw in clients vs. just teaching. With this new name that umbrellas several stand-alone entities such as the VTH, Equine Hospital and ILM, etc., Charlie wondered where the new VMC web pages would fit into the online brochure and the whole College web site. When the time comes, he will discuss with Drs. Lee and Fettman about what to add, rename and where to post.
3. Tom Harmon brought up URL aliases. ILM was the most recent group to request an alias URL. They wanted to change their URL from http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/ilm/ to http://www.ilm.colostate.edu/ because it's shorter. At first, CRG said no, then re-evaluated the request and agreed it was a valid reason. So their web pages will still reside on the the cvmbs web server, and ACNS takes care of the alias part since they manage the domain names for the campus. Other examples include the Front Range Neuroscience Group at http://www.frng.colostate.edu/, the Macromolecular Resource Facility at http://www.macromolecular.colostate.edu/, the James L. Voss Veterinary Teaching Hospital at http://www.csuvets.colostate.edu/ and the Websurveyor Info Page at http://survey.cvmbs.colostate.edu/info/.

   Tom gave some history on the WebSurveyor survey software and said Larry Cobb will eventually be looking to replace this program with something more secure. There is no timeline for the new software. Also, a new web server should be in place by year end with new software, a Win2003 server. The transfer should be transparent to webmasters.

4. Erin Napier gave us a review of the current MIP home page and the proposed new look for her home page and lower level pages.
   1. Problems with the current MIP home page at http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/mip/ (Archived copy at http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/mip/reference/old_index.html)
      1. All white background - want more color
      2. Centered left on page - prefer center alignment
      3. Navigation on home page doesn't repeat on any other pages - feel it's not user-friendly
      4. No info that really tells about MIP, not selling the department well
      5. The current JavaScript coding and use of images for the flyouts for the left-hand navigation is difficult to work with and not accessibility-friendly since it's images vs. text
      6. HTML coding is out of date throughout the site (HTML vs. XHTML)
   2. Features of the proposed new look at http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/mip/reference/redesign/index.htm
      1. Added background gradient color
      2. Center aligned the page in the monitor for a more pleasing and balanced look
      3. Added areas of interest with short blurbs to better advertise MIP and capture users' attention to explore the site further
      4. Kept the top navigation banner with the CSU logo, College name, caduceus and list of links but added a background color to match the new background gradient.
      5. Added another list of links to four general areas: Department Info, Education, Research and Service. This stays consistent under the top navigation area and repeats throughout the whole site. With MIP adding more and more content, hopefully this will be an easier way to manage tons of content. They noticed lots of newer sites are going this way with multiple horizontal menus.
      6. As you hover over the four general area links, another horizontal sub menu displays leading you to the lower level pages which will have their own left navigation flyout menu unique to their content.
      7. The presentation style such as the colored gradient background, most positioning of layout, and dynamic navigation menus use external Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Multiple external style sheets are used to deliver a look for the screen and another for printing where the top and left navigation is left off, just leaving the content to print. You can view under File > Print Preview in most browsers without having to actually print on paper to see how it will print vs. how it looks on a screen.
      8. Validated XHTML and CSS with code and accessibility validators. The CSS was created from a Dreamweaver-provided CSS, then edited as needed. Erin purchased the book "Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide" by Eric Meyer. She said it's hard to read for beginners, but as you learn more, it's great for reference.

         Jill mentioned she read "Integrated Web Design: Building the New Breed of Designer and Developer" by Molly Holzschlag. It's an easy read and reviews the challenge of integrating the creative types with the code types to design the best website, use of color, typography and CSS. Published in 2003, it is still relevant and available for checkout from the CSU Library.

      9. Reviewed with Vischeck at http://www.vischeck.com/vischeck/vischeckURL.php to verify there was sufficient contrast between text and background for users who are color-blind.
      10. Tested on different platforms (PC WinXP and Mac OSX) and different browsers (Internet Explorer, Opera, Firefox, Netscape 7 and AOL) with different text sizes and different window sizes. There are some layout problems with the AOL browser and other minor mouse-over issues Jill and Erin will try to resolve. Most likely the problems are in the CSS and the JavaScript. If they can't figure it out, Jill will tackle it at a CSS workshop in mid-October.
      11. Tried using Dreamweaver templates (.dwt files). It did quirky things during editing. Decided against using after much frustration. After removing the templates, everything worked OK. Charlie asked her if she thought it was a Dreamweaver problem. She said yes.
   3. Erin received favorable comments such as "excellent", "very nice" and "I love it"!

      Tom suggested an intro paragraph or mission statement on the home page. Erin explained that the department head wants continuously updated news items that change on a regular basis on the home page to sell the department, and that he and others say people don't read web pages anymore, they just skim them, plus the mission statement is quite long and under the link to Department Info. Jill suggested maybe the top left news item area could be titled "Welcome" with just one or two sentences about the department that could be permanently placed right above the mailing address then use the right column for the news items. Erin mentioned that the mailing address will be there permanently and how she finds it hard to find mailing addresses on other web sites. Others agreed. Charlie suggested the proposed wording on the home page should mention the undergrad, graduate, residency, and PhD offerings unique to the department and because the top navigation takes up real estate and forces information further down the page, to not make the user scroll down to get this important info. Erin will take the suggestions back to her department head.

      The question came up again as to whether the departments can deviate from a consistent look or not. The other three department home pages were reviewed and are not consistent except for the top navigation banner and white background. If there is no consistency amongst department heads to enforce a specific look, then it was agreed it was OK to have a different look as long as the original top navigation banner with the CSU logo, college name, dept/unit name, caduceus and centered list of links is used. Erin received a round of applause for her work.

The meeting concluded at 9:55 am.

The next meeting will be held on Tuesday, October 11 ^th, 9:00-10:00 am, W1 A/Z.

Minutes submitted by Jill Lenz.

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