Updated web guidelines New version of the web guidelines up and available. Relatively few changes: * incorporated changes from last web guidelines review meeting * added links to more accessibility checking tools * added a recommendation (not requirement) of checking sites in Safari * a few other minor cleanups, etc. Available "as a printable PDF":http://www.santarosa.edu/compserv/iss/web-guide/web-guidelines.pdf (180KB) or as "accessible HTML":http://www.santarosa.edu/compserv/iss/web-guide/web-guidelines.html There is also a handy "checklist":http://www.santarosa.edu/compserv/iss/web-guide/web-checklist.txt that's based on the guidelines, but each item is very brief and it's organized by the easiest order to check things in.

Report from web guidelines open forum

For those of you that missed it, here's a quick summary of the changes to the guidelines suggested from yesterday's meeting (let me know if I forgot something):

• Make a short "checklist" format version (probably with links to more details).
• Include information (or a link to information) about how to try out accessibility software. This is being followed up on with the appropriate lab people.
• Apparently there's a room in the computer lab on the 3rd floor of Maggini with computers set up with different browser versions, available for use in testing web-sites.
• There was a question about the acronym tag. Here's an example: <acronym title="Non-Credit Programs and Services">NCP&S</acronym>.
(NCP&S)
• Related to the 1.1.1.7 (/outside/), we should include suggestions on exactly how designers can include credits.
• I need to add "ECMAScript" to the list of example scripting languages.
• Several suggestions on PDFs. Link to more material on how to make good ones? Hyperlinks, bookmarks. Drop the "primarily designed for print" from the explanation. Maybe some information on how to properly create in-PDF navigation... (also one of the explanations belongs in the next item)

• There were some questions about when the browser versioning would get updated (to drop the 4.x stuff), when the adobe acrobat versioning would get updated and when the bandwidth-based file-size recommendations would get updated. In all three cases the basic answer is the same: when the percentage of users using these older technologies drops down to an insignificantly small portion of our user population. The details of each are different, however. With browser versioning we have very detailed information about how many hits with each browser version we get (it's logged), so there's no guesswork. Adobe Acrobat versioning involves more guesswork and/or use of "industry-wide" stats, since fetching a PDF logs information on the web client, not the Acrobat Reader.

  For bandwidth, it'll probably be quite a while: large portions of Sonoma County (most of "West County", for instance) have a maximum available bandwidth of 26.6Kbps (unless they pay substantial costs; monthly fees plus 1-8 cents per minute; adds up to a few hundred a month for ISDN). Even for users lucky enough to be a bit closer than that, about 44Kbps is the maximum available unless you live within about 5 miles of 101. Sonoma County has a report on these issues at http://www.sonoma-county.org/edb/pdf/2001-02%20Connectivity%20Report.pdf

• 1.2.1.17-1.2.1.19 (page 16) need to be consolidated.
• There needs to be some information somewhere on what the process for getting a (departmental) web page up is. This probably needs to involve a multi-path approach, depending on the expertise and resources of the department. (CATE, hiring a consultant, getting somebody to do it for you for free, doing it yourself)
• Somebody suggested that there be a "So, you want to have a website..." PDA.
Posted by at 10:32 AM

New Web Guidelines (1.37)

You can view the latest version of the "web design standards" in printable PDF or accessible HTML. (apologies, but some of the examples are difficult to make properly accessible)

Changes since Version 1.33:

• rewording of the PDF section
• large amount of rewording to the "/outside/" section, primarily based on suggestions and feedback from Linda Hemenway, Ken Fiori and Becky Hill.
• Other minor formatting and rewording
• Cleaned up some examples

All previous versions are available for reference, if needed.

Web Guidelines Open Forum

Many of you attended the meeting on February 11 to discuss the proposed "web design standards for the College Wide Information System". At that meeting we had a lively discussion on the merits of the existing proposal. In response to that meeting, modifications have been incorporated into a new proposal.

You can view the latest version of the "web design standards" in printable PDF or accessible HTML. (apologies, but some of the examples are difficult to make properly accessible)

We would like to invite everyone who is interested to a follow-up meeting on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 from 1pm to 3pm in Barnett Hall room 1279. The purpose of this meeting is to complete the review of the proposed web design standards.

Also, there has been informative discussion on the web-guidelines mailing list; please feel free to subscribe to the web-guidelines mailing list and participate.

Changes since Version 1.29 (February 7th):

• Removed Glossary
• Cleaned up some examples
• Added a reference to WAVE next to Bobby
• Added a URL for the guidelines at the top
• Reworded the outside linking portion to be more exact

A complete list of changes since the first draft is available, as is a colorized list of changes since the last meeting (based on the HTML version). Some may find a diff from the source document more readable...

Some changes to the wording of the PDF and outside linking guidelines are coming soon.