|
|
|
By Kenn Moffitt,
Director of University Online Communications, UNT
Communications and Marketing
November 2002
marked my ten-year anniversary here at UNT. There are
some things about working at UNT that I totally get. Like
it is a shorter wait to receive a human heart or to go
into space than it is to get a reserved parking space.
Like unsolicited advice from a UNT member outside of a
department is sometimes as welcome as Christina Aguilera
at a Brittany Spears look-a-like contest. Like UNT has
the population of a small city and sometimes the
interdepartmental communication of tin cans on a string.
I understand those things ...
I remember the great E-mail war of 1994. “You
stop sending unsolicited stuff to everyone in the E-mail
list”, “No, you stop sending E-mail to everyone
in the E-mail list” . . . All of these rebuffs were
replies sent to everyone in the E-mail group and not just
to the offending senders, which caused a flurry of
E-mails every couple of minutes one fine afternoon.
Things like this happen from time to time, human nature
being what it is . . .
In the beginning
I understand how the Web presence evolved at UNT. The
Mosaic browser
hit campus. Some areas got the importance of the Web
right away and some took a while. There wasn’t a lot
of support back then when the Internet was used primarily
by researchers and “Trekkies” and so you had to
“roll your own” solution if you wanted to jump
on this new Web bandwagon.
Way back then, not only did we have to teach ourselves
HTML and Web server administration, often in between the
duties that we were already performing or on our own
time, but we also had to try and convince our superiors
about the importance of the Web. How the Web was not just
another toy or fad that would have all of the
productivity of “FreeCell” and
“Minesweeper” on a work computer.
Each Web developer was an island. No matter where our
strengths actually lied, we each had to be a
communicator, writer, artist, information architect,
programmer, marketer and project manager. To make the Web
presence happen for our departments.
Now
Flash forward to now. Everyone gets it. Web
self-service applications are a given for students. We
have a great Web Support department
that is constantly upgrading the tools and providing
classes to help new Web developers. Our bosses sometimes
have to be convinced NOT to put something on the Web. Our
new EIS
System and portals will be Web based. A large number of
students are involved in online learning. All of these
advancements while we as Web developers often are still
doing things the old ways. This I don't totally
understand.
We are locked in our cubicles, creating our own
independent Websites in a vacuum without thinking about
being part of a greater whole. Every Website and
application at UNT is a part of the University Web
presence and we developers should be part of a larger Web
developer community here at UNT. Our Web users at UNT
don’t care if they are on a particular
department’s Website and new UNT Web users
don’t necessarily understand which department is
responsible for which Website anyway. To the Web users at
UNT all of the various sites are the entire Web presence
and are all the UNT Website. I see this repeatedly when
students send E-mail to me from the main UNT site
complaining about other sites that I have no connection
to (believe me, I also get plenty of complaints
about sites I am responsible for).
Myths -vs- Reality
So as the Web has grown up over the years, maybe it is
time that we in the UNT Web developer community address
some of our own growing pains. We are now expected by
students, faculty and staff to be “Web
professionals” and not “hobbyists”. Maybe
now is the time that we should get rid of some of the
old, self-taught habits that keep from fully serving the
UNT Web community. The following lists a few of the
misunderstandings or myths that are still prevalent at
UNT:
- MYTH:
The Web policy and Web publishing guidelines do
not apply to all Websites and services at
UNT.
- Reality:
The UNT Web
Publishing
Policy and Guidelines
are rules that UNT Websites and online
applications have to follow at UNT. They are
common sense, accepted Web practices (though they
do make “sense”, you would be surprised
that they are not always “common” among
UNT Web developers). These contain rules such as:
a prominent link back to UNT must appear on every
main Web page or destination; contact information
should be displayed so that the Web audience can
communicate comments or problems with the Website
owner; and that metatags must be used on every
main entry site to ensure that the site can be
located when using UNT or external search
engines. State law requires some of the rules and
guidelines such as metatags.
- MYTH: The UNT wordmark is just a design
element and really does not serve any real
purpose or add anything except aesthetic value to
UNT Web pages.
- Reality: The UNT
wordmark has been required on main UNT
Websites since 1997. The wordmark is UNT’s
logo and is therefore the only visual cue that
confirms that a Web user is visiting an official
UNT Website. The wordmark is especially valuable
because every UNT Website looks completely
different. Usability experts such as Jakob
Nielson report that Web users expect to find a
logo or wordmark throughout the entire site and
that the wordmark or logo is expected to be a
link back to the company or entities homepage.
Don’t agree with me? Check out any
professional, corporate Website and look for the
logos and the design consistencies between
departments and areas.
- MYTH: My site or Web service stands alone.
- Reality: ANY Website or application that a
user accesses from the UNT home page or that is
considered as official information is a part of
the UNT Web presence. A student or community
member does not make distinctions between
departmental Websites and Web applications that
they navigate to. All Websites and applications
are viewed as part of the UNT entity and have the
potential to affect user’s views about UNT
as a whole. Creating, publishing or removing a
single Website can affect other departments. If
you create a new Website, it must be linked from
other pages and sometimes other departments in
order to be found. The new Website must also
contain accurate titles, metatags, and text
keywords in order for users to find the site
using UNT and external search engines. If you
remove or relocate a Website, you should do a
search to see if other departments at UNT are
linking to your Website and contact those
departments about the change.
- MYTH: A Website must be unattractive and
under-designed visually to be accessible to
persons with disabilities
- Reality: Text and links are the meat and
potatoes of the Web. While you don’t want to
sacrifice accessibility compliance for artistic
design, you also shouldn’t have to sacrifice
Web design to add accessibility. A Website can
have both. Logical and easy access for all and
attractive and contemporary design for the
non-disabled audience. There is even some
evidence that huge blocks of text and links
without design practices can adversely affect
people with cognitive learning disabilities or
dyslexia. Good design can divide these walls of
text and lists of links into more manageable
sections and provide focus and priority to a page
full of competing information.
- MYTH: People with disabilities are a very
small minority of the people that use the UNT
Website and these people probably don’t use
the Web very much
- Reality: Many people think of Web
accessibility as adding features to existing
Websites in case someone with disabilities
chooses to visit. In some cases, a Website or
application is better suited to people with
disabilities. If a person who is blind or site
impaired could perform real-world functions from
the safety and comfort of their own home instead
of finding a way to campus and navigating to a
building and department, don’t you think
that the Web would be the preferred way of
performing the function or accessing information?
- MYTH: Most Websites have counters and so I
should add a counter to my site to appear more
professional.
- Reality: Okay this is more of a petty
annoyance of mine than anything else, but I
can’t resist. Counters are primarily used on
small, private Websites and are used as a
marketing tool to show visitors how popular the
site is. Most, if not all, counter programs can
be set to start counting at a higher number than
zero. So if you use a counter to show off your
site popularity, why not start the counter at
1,000 or one million instead of zero to impress
your audience? However, if you are using the
counter to try and accumulate accurate
information about how many times that your site
was visited, then your Web administrator should
be able to provide you with more useful
statistics. A Web counter can only tell you how
many times the page was visited but comprehensive
Web statistics from server log files can also
show you how many visits your site has received,
by which audiences, coming from which URLs, and
using which browsers and versions. If you visit
the Nielsen//NetRatings
list of the top 25 net properties you can visit
the top sites and you will see the absence of
counters.
- MYTH: I use FrontPage or Dreamweaver to create
my Web pages so I really don’t have to learn
HTML.
- Reality: FrontPage, Dreamweaver and other
Web WYSIWYG packages write HTML markup for you.
But, if the applications mess up the page or
produce HTML that has an undesired effect, it is
important to know how to go into the markup and
edit the code. These Web editors only write HTML
that is based on the current version of HTML
supported when the packages came out. FrontPage
2000 does not include wizards and dialogues to
insert accessibility features that have become
more prominent in the Web development field. If
you want to add accessibility features, you will
have to make small edits to the HTML that
FrontPage produces and for that you need at least
some understanding of HTML.
Questions?
I hope this helps clear up any misunderstandings that
you may have had with regard to Web pages at the
University of North Texas. Feel free to contact me if you
have any questions/comments about any of this: moffitt@unt.edu
|