Web For Dummies Discussion Thread

For those who attended Web For Dummies today, we want to hear your feedback, questions, or ideas about what you heard today, as well as any information you might want to share that would be helpful to others. Please do so in the comments section of this post below, and we’ll do our best to answer any questions you may have. Also, if this is your first visit to WebTide, please bookmark this page or subscribe to the RSS feed, and participate in UA’s web community.

More Information:

• Web For Dummies Resources
• UA Web Guide

Crash Course in Web Series:

• Organization and Introduction (CCW Part 1)
• HTML & CSS (CCW Part 2)
• WordPress & PHP (CCW Part 3)
• Javascript Libraries – jQuery (CCW Part 4)

Learn from the pros at UA’s ‘Web for Dummies’ class

There’s still time to register for our upcoming “Web For Dummies” class, scheduled for Tuesday, February 22nd at 8:30 a.m.  Learn from a group of UA’s own web experts about how to construct, maintain, and promote a website. The class will cover how to set up your site with OIT, planning your site, customizing UA’s HTML Templates, working with UA’s WordPress Theme, and using social media to broadcast information. During and after the lecture Q&A sessions will be held where you will have the opportunity to ask a good selection of UA’s web community questions.

The class will be held in the Capstone College of Nursing Building, room 1012 on February 22nd from 8:30am to 1:00pm with individual sessions starting at different times during that period. Registration is required for the class because of limited seating. For more information on times, sessions, and registration, please refer to the PSA website at http://psa.ua.edu/?page_id=531.

Welcoming our newest team member

Rachel Carden officially joins the Web Communications team today, and we’re excited to have her on board.  She is a talented designer and developer who comes to us from Samford University, and is a UA graduate who is excited about being back at the Capstone.  She’s a great addition to our web community at UA, and we’re looking forward to seeing her contributions!

WordPress University webinar on Higher Ed Experts

Just a quick announcement about a unique professional development opportunity in the new year…

It’s no secret that we in Web Communications are big fans of WordPress, and we’ve addressed our use of WordPress as a content management system for institutional sites here plenty in the past.  Now we’re partnering with Higher Ed Experts to conduct a webinar on using WordPress in higher education.  The WordPress University webinar is set for March 22, 23 & 24, 2011, and our WordPress guru and developer Matthew Muro will be delivering the second panel, titled “How to create a branded WordPress theme for your decentralized units.”  Other participants include Mike Richwalsky from John Carroll University and Stephanie Leary from Texas A&M University.

If you’re interested in exploring the use of and application of WordPress in greater depth and getting hands-on with using WordPress to manage your college/division/department web site, I’d encourage you to sign up for the webinar – it’s going to be a great class.  If there is interest from multiple areas, we can possibly organize a group session on campus – just let me know in the comments section or shoot me a message.

WordPress University:
Strategies, tools and shortcuts for WordPress-based higher ed websites
March 22, 23 & 24, 2011 – 1PM-2PM ET
More Information and Registration

UA WordPress Theme project featured on CollegeWebEditor.com

Our UA WordPress Theme project is featured today on CollegeWebEditor.com, an industry-leading blog on higher education web, marketing and PR.  Thanks to Karine Joly for the opportunity to share our experience on this project with her audience.

• A WordPress 3.0 theme to do more with less at The University of Alabama

Job Opening: Web Communications Specialist

WebComm has a Web Communications Specialist job now open at http://jobs.ua.edu.  The basics:

Job Summary:

This position will assume overall responsibility for designing and developing the website(s) of a specific college(s) or division. This position is responsible for all development, implementation, training and support for the college(s) or division web site(s).  

Requirements:

A minimum of a bachelor’s degree in communications, marketing, public relations, or a related technical field and at least two years experience in web communications, marketing, public relations or related experience OR a bachelor’s degree in an unrelated field and at least three years experience in web communications, marketing, public relations, or related experience. Working knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite, Javascript, Microsoft Office products, and image editing software. Demonstrated expertise in building and maintaining websites, including thorough knowledge of valid HTML, CSS, Javascript and web page editors. Basic understanding of the technology that supports Internet communication. Strong graphic design skills. Ability to clearly convey messages through writing. Superior file management and organizational skills. Ability to self-start with little supervision. Strong project management skills. Good interpersonal skills to include strong oral and written communications skills. Ability to think and plan strategically as part of a team. 

Experience using open source content management systems (such as WordPress) to build dynamic web sites is preferred.  

If you know of someone who might have interest in working with us, please encourage them to apply at http://jobs.ua.edu. 

UA.edu receives high praise from EDU Checkup

I wanted to share the following independent review of UA.edu, which was recently conducted by EDU Checkup, a higher education blog and review site. The review was very positive – in fact the reviewer (Nick DeNardis) tweeted that UA.edu is “one of the highest scoring sites on @educheckup”, and called it “rock star work” (http://twitter.com/nickdenardis/status/5894882926).

Overall, UA.edu received a 98% on visuals, 99% on code, and 93% for information, for an overall score of 97%. While it’s certainly nice to receive such a high score, the most gratifying part of the review is to see an impartial observer pick up on many of the intentional design decisions made during this process and appreciate the rationale and the work that went into those choices.

The review, in video form, is here:

http://educheckup.com/2009/11/20/the-university-of-alabama-episode-129/

Also, UA.edu is currently featured on eduStyle.net:

http://www.edustyle.net/site.php?site=3512

UPDATED 11/23:  As a follow-up to his review, DeNardis blogged about his review of UA.edu on the eduStyle Blog, here:.

http://www.edustyle.net/blog/?p=710

Announcing the launch of UA Mobile Web (beta version)

As part of an ongoing strategic process to optimize our web presence for all users, the Office of Web Communications has completed the initial development and rollout of a UA Mobile Web site for The University of Alabama.  This site is a custom web site and suite of applications which deliver top-level content, services, and features from UA to your iPhone, Blackberry, PDA, or other smartphone.  UA Mobile Web optimizes web services and content specifically for mobile devices, making them immediately available to users any time from anywhere.  The beta version of UA Mobile Web includes functionality and content such as: 

• News
• Events Calendar
• Campus Map
• Faculty/Staff Directory
• Video
• UA Web Sites
• CrimsonRide
• Contact UA
• Search

UA Mobile Web is now part of the UA Home Page, so that visitors who navigate to www.ua.edu on mobile devices will automatically be redirected to the appropriate mobile version for their device, including separate versions for iPhone and other devices such as Blackberry, Android, Windows Mobile, etc.  Users will always have the option of viewing the full UA Home Page (as it appears in a web browser) via a link on the mobile site if desired.  The UA Mobile Web site can also be accessed directly at http://m.ua.edu/.

UA Mobile Web was developed in-house by the Office of Web Communications using open source code and platforms.  As this is a “beta” release, we plan to grow and expand its functionality and content in the near future and over time.  Also, we are treating this platform as an open one, so there is certainly the opportunity to add to the mobile site with additional pieces and applications developed elsewhere or by other groups.  We’ll be reaching out to other areas on campus to make this option known and available.

We believe this effort represents a significant step forward in making our content and services available to all audiences in as many platforms as possible.  If you have any questions, feedback or comments, please don’t hesitate to let us know.

New UA Web Templates are now available

Web templates based on the design and functionality of the current UA Home Page are available for usage by any official unit of The University of Alabama. There are three basic versions of the templates available, each of which offers numerous options for customization and arrangement of content. The template packages are organized into three different navigation types — one-level horizontal navigation, two-level horizontal navigation, and no horizontal navigation.

Also, new this time around is the release of a significant “how-to guide” for explaining how the templates work and best practices and techniques for customizing them to specific needs.  The UA Templates Guide explains the basic design elements of the templates, details the grid structure upon which the templates are built, describes the process of customizing the templates, explains how to create content to fit within the templates, and provides further resources for learning how to build highly-functional and visually-engaging web sites. This guide is intended to be a primer for working with the templates, and we encourage all users of the templates to read it carefully before beginning any design work.

By using these templates, units of The University of Alabama ensure that their web site is closely tied to the University’s top-level web sites and help build a cohesive and effective overall institutional web presence.  Please feel free to use the templates as needed, and to share this information with anyone you think would benefit from knowing about it.  And as always, please let us know if you have questions, comments or feedback regarding these templates. 

• UA Web Templates: http://webguide.ua.edu/templates.html

Strategic iPhone/Mobile development for key UA web sites

I’d like to share the outcome of a project we’ve been working on that positively impacts our top-level strategic web sites.  Below is a high-level summary of the project.  If you have any questions about this, please ask them in the comments section and we’ll be glad to answer.

Background/Challenge

We have recently been working to optimize our key strategic web sites for mobile devices, in order to ensure maximum accessibility and compatibility with all mobile platforms.

The challenge here is that manufacturers of mobile devices use a variety of platforms for mobile web browsing – some very “web-like”, and some not so much.  So taking the content of a web site and making it work in all of the major mobile platforms requires dedicated design processes that target specific devices, and deliver content to those devices based on their capabilities.  By doing so, we optimize the experience of browsing our sites on mobile devices without overwhelming the device beyond its capabilities, and we ensure that the mobile user experience for browsing our sites is of the highest quality.

Incidentally, we have always designed our web sites with mobile platforms in mind, as the process of building web standards-based web sites makes these sites mostly accessible in almost any platform.  But in order to improve the experience for our users, we have undertaken the task of optimizing our key web sites for mobile devices, separate from our standard development practices.

The Results

The results of this process are that we have successfully optimized our key strategic content-related web sites – UA News Center (http://uanews.ua.edu), Research Magazine (http://research.ua.edu), and Dialog (http://dialog.ua.edu) – for all of the major mobile platforms, so that the content on these sites is easily accessible and navigable on all devices.

Of particular interest and focus during this process was development for the iPhone platform, which is growing in popularity and market share.  We have built alternate versions of these web sites that are specifically tailored for the iPhone’s functionality using open source plug-ins that work with our content management system, WordPress, and the functionality of these sites is now very high for the iPhone.

Also, the UA Home Page (http://www.ua.edu) displays very well on the iPhone as well, as it has the exact look and functionality as it does in a web browser.  It also displays well in a stripped-down format in many older mobile devices, but we will be working to further advance its mobile functionality by fine-tuning its mobile capabilties.

Examples

Below are some screenshots of each site in various mobile devices so that you can see how they now appear in these devices.  We will continue to work to optimize and fine-tune these mobile versions of our sites and look for further opportunities to expand our reach to these mediums.  These steps represent a significant upgrade in the mobile browsing experience for visitors to our web sites, and will help us continue to spread our messages to new audiences while staying at the forefront of technology trends.

Click for larger version

More:

• CSS for the Phone (WebTide)
• How to Test Websites for Mobile Devices (WebTide)
• The 5-Minute CSS Mobile Makeover (Perishable Press)