Slides for talk given at IWMW 1998 held at the University of Newcastle on 15-17 September 1998. See http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/webmaster-sep1998/materials/

1. Brian Lantz
brian.lantz@uce.ac.uk
Dumbing Down
(… or how the West Midlands Police
Paedophile and Pornography Squad
forced me to change our web site)
- making the UCE Web Site
more accessible

2. Brian Lantz
brian.lantz@uce.ac.uk
Introduction
• Background to UCE’s Site
• Browsers
• Search Engines (and the Police)
• UCE’s New Design
• The Future

3. Brian Lantz
brian.lantz@uce.ac.uk
UCE’s Web Site
• Marketing, Marketing, Marketing
• Designs became more ‘sophisticated’
• Lost sight of our customers?

4. Brian Lantz
brian.lantz@uce.ac.uk
UCE Site Development
• version 1 lost
(thank goodness!)
• version 2 - graphic
navigation but text from
prospectuses

5. Brian Lantz
brian.lantz@uce.ac.uk
UCE’s Current Site
• Frames for Navigation
• 13 graphics on home
page
• Photos everywhere
• Inaccessible - some
customers, search
engines

6. Brian Lantz
brian.lantz@uce.ac.uk
Browsers
• Do not necessarily
support even frames
• Long download times
frustrate users
• No frames, low
graphics, etc.,
does not mean
boring
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%
Full frames
Partial frames
No frames
Data from a site with high school and high international use.

7. Brian Lantz
brian.lantz@uce.ac.uk
Search engines
• Robert Mapplethorpe, Pornography and Search
Engines.
• No Frames Support from: Excite, HotBot/Inktomi,
Infoseek, Lycos means not indexedmeans not indexed
(http://searchenginewatch.internet.com/webmasters/features.html)
• Frame support from: Altavista, etc., means lossmeans loss
of context.of context.

8. Brian Lantz
brian.lantz@uce.ac.uk
The New UCE Site
• Based on a table
structure
main navigation
sub-navigation
graphics (more later)
main page text

9. Brian Lantz
brian.lantz@uce.ac.uk
The New UCE Site
• The content needs attention
Came from prospectus entries
Needs to be shorter
Needs to be rewritten by a communicator
Academics pushing towards more content
• And those graphics ...

10. Brian Lantz
brian.lantz@uce.ac.uk
The New UCE Site
• Those graphics
Designed to load quickly, i.e. small, ‘Netscape’ palette …
Recycled - come from browser cache
Representative of location to assist in navigation
but also including a random graphic to highlight news or
events

11. Brian Lantz
brian.lantz@uce.ac.uk
The New UCE Site
• The problems with this design
Each page has to be edited if change.
No technophilic honey pot
• The advantages of this design
Minimally browser dependent
Minimal loading time
Each page carries its context
Search engine friendly

12. Brian Lantz
brian.lantz@uce.ac.uk
The Future
??

13. Brian Lantz
brian.lantz@uce.ac.uk
The Future - use a Commercial
Site Designer?
• Good advice from Danny Birchall
(http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/website-info-mgt/1998-03/0005.html)
– Go to the designer with some clear ideas about how
you want the site to look.
– The one thing you really need set the budget at the
top of the discussion and say "what do I get for
£XXXX?”
– Carefully spell out the accessibility you want for the
site. Designers do not understand the concept of
cross-browser and cross-platform compatibility.

14. Brian Lantz
brian.lantz@uce.ac.uk
The Future - use a Commercial
Site Designer?
• But it can all go wrong
– They do not understand our market.
– They design for the new commercial power users.
– They try to sell you their ill defined, in-house
solutions.
– They do not know how to deal with knowledgeable
clients.

15. Brian Lantz
brian.lantz@uce.ac.uk
The Future - use a Commercial
Site Designer?
• I can now reveal
– We took their graphics (demanded and received
copyright)
– We accepted their internal search solutions, but
required documentation so could reuse elsewhere
– We rejected their Info Management System -
appeared to solve problems, but only made them
– Nearly got caught in not defining deliverables

16. Brian Lantz
brian.lantz@uce.ac.uk
The Future - use a Commercial
Site Designer?
• Would I go outside again?
– Costed internal solutions not cheaper
– Process of discussion with outsiders
helped
– In the end may have more control over
outcome
• Maybe.

17. Brian Lantz
brian.lantz@uce.ac.uk
In conclusion
• Some UCE customers have low standard browsers
and modems
• Sites designed for browsers above Netscape 2
close out some of our customers
• In an educational marketplace UCE cannot afford
to turn away customers who want information
• But it must look good …
• And above all … have quality content

18. Brian Lantz
brian.lantz@uce.ac.uk
Dumbing Down
The End
- making the UCE Web Site
more accessible