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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?.

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Evolution of Telex web sites

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  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?

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