Writing and Managing Content The Design of Sites: Patterns for Creating Winning Web Sites

05-650: BIDAmin Nassiri Page Templates Need to keep the pages consistentProblem Solution Use grids Define global templates Define individual templates

05-650: BIDAmin Nassiri Content Modules Need to keep the content fresh Hard to constantly update the content Problem Solution Create (use!) a publishing system Define position of each content type Create admin pages

05-650: BIDAmin Nassiri Content Management System

05-650: BIDAmin Nassiri Headlines and Blurbs Most contents are buried into pages Need to grab visitor’s attention Problem Solution Write a hook Store them in the database

05-650: BIDAmin Nassiri Personalized Content Engineering a dynamic website is hard Intentional vs. automatic Problem Solution Require minimal personalization Invite visitors to personalize Categorize content Create a scoring system Track customer visits with cookies

05-650: BIDAmin Nassiri Message Boards Managing message boards is a tedious task Need to keep the quality high Problem Solution Anonymous posts? Moderate posts? Make the message board visible Require new comers to register Present clear rules Add admin pages

05-650: BIDAmin Nassiri Writing for Search Engines Need to rank high on search engines Different search engines, have different algorithms Problem Solution Write distinctive titles for each page Write descriptive text at the top Use tag Use tag for multimedia contents Avoid counterproductive strategies Use robots.txt

05-650: BIDAmin Nassiri Robots.txt from sun.com User-agent: * Disallow: /products-n-solutions/government/ Disallow: /storagetek/im3 Disallow: /starofficesearch/ Disallow: /software/star/staroffice/search-en.xml Disallow: /software/products/appsrvr_pe/ Disallow: /cgi-bin/sun/webdesign/ Disallow: /cgi-bin/go.cgi Disallow: /offers/docs Disallow: /remove.jsp # robots.txt for # Requests for updates should be filed through: # under Web Site Feedback # Updated: September 5, 2008

05-650: BIDAmin Nassiri Inverted-Pyramid Writing Style On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely. (useit.com) Problem Solution

05-650: BIDAmin Nassiri Printable Pages Not all page elements need to be printed Problem Solution Remove extra elements Add labels Avoid tables

05-650: BIDAmin Nassiri Distinctive HTML Titles Pages with ambiguous titles can be confusing Problem Solution Vary titles from page to page Use titles as bread crumbs

05-650: BIDAmin Nassiri Internationalized and localized Content Not accounting for language, cultural, and economical differences would limit your audience Problem Solution Store strings separate from code Hire translators Centralized vs. decentralized Avoid terms that are not widely known Beware of cultural differences Transform dates, currencies, measures

05-650: BIDAmin Nassiri Internationalized and localized Content (cont.) Consider devices used for web surfing Understand legal issues Solution

05-650: BIDAmin Nassiri Style Sheets Updating site design can be time- consuming without style sheets Problem Solution Define a standard style sheet Define separate CSS for printing Define separate CSS for mobile devices Improve accessibility Test with different browsers

Writing and Managing Content The Design of Sites: Patterns for Creating Winning Web Sites