1 / 15

Evolution of Telex web sites

Evolution of Telex web sites. John Smart GreyDuck Technology, Inc. (651) 283-8689. Quick Overview. First Domino web site Brief overview What needed fixing after that “WebTemplate” – flexible, tableless, shared design Lessons Learned. Why Lotus Domino?.

Download Presentation

Evolution of Telex web sites

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Evolution of Telex web sites John Smart GreyDuck Technology, Inc. (651) 283-8689

  2. Quick Overview • First Domino web site • Brief overview • What needed fixing after that • “WebTemplate” – flexible, tableless, shared design • Lessons Learned

  3. Why Lotus Domino? • In ElectroVoice brand’s case: When their employee maintaining the site left Telex around August, 2001, there were 483 HTML files! • Lotus Notes clients already on the desktop • Lotus Domino was a fast way to get • Security • Editing interface • Information Requests, On-Line Warranty Registration, Rep Folders • Evolution • From zero, through “What do you want on the web?” with a dozen product managers, to the web in three months.

  4. And then what? • The next sites, copying design and tweaking as we go, had some improvements: • Better URLs • No popup windows for product pages • Better navigation (for users and search engines) • Smarter use of CSS • Meta-tags • Relative URLs (using the “base” tag)

  5. Updating the old sites • Before we went back, we wanted to take one large step forward and achieve a single template. • Therefore, flexible design needed. • CSS Tableless Design!

  6. CSS Tableless Design“Now we’re cooking!” <div class=“header”> … </div> <div class=“sidenav”> … </div> <div class=“content”> <div class=“relatedlinks”> … </div> <h1>Our New Product</h1> …. </div> <div class=“footer”> … </div> http://www.GreyDuck.com/tableless-demo/H-341.html

  7. Lessons Learned CSS • It’s tricky to be all-browser compatible. • ~4% still use Netscape 4 (only token CSS support) • IE doesn’t get CSS completely right either. • Structure your naked HTML correctly. • Buy TopStyle from www.bradsoft.com, or something like it. • “The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.” – Oliver Wendel Holmes

  8. Lessons LearnedBusiness Web Sites • Business-owned content is key to having a site that’s kept up to date. • Involve the right people! • Requests filtered on the business side

  9. Lessons LearnedSearch Engines • Changing window titles moved www.telex.com/duplication from 45th to 3rd on Google! • PageRank: Each page casts “votes” for other pages by what they link to. Don’t waste it. • Don’t count on JavaScript links or menus • Site Maps are great • Breadcrumb navigation • Get others’ sites to link to the same URL

  10. Next Steps • Get the rest of the (IS-supported) Telex sites onto the same version of the site. • Focus on directory-based search engines. • Work with aural browsers (for the blind), wireless devices, etc. • Competitive Advantage

  11. Thank you! • For more… • Google PageRank explained http://www.iprcom.com/papers/pagerank/ • CSS Edgehttp://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/ • Best article on CSS layout I’ve seenhttp://www.alistapart.com/stories/practicalcss/ • Latest version of what Telex is doinghttp://www.telex.com/wirelesshttp://www.telex.com/WirelessMicrophones • This User Group! • John.Smart@GreyDuck.com • Questions?

More Related