Review and understand the following explanations of general developmental decisions that were “adopted” for the Resident Website. 

Page Content Types (may be used individually or in combination on webpage)

• • Directly entered: Typed onto a page by edit authorized (WCOwner). Generally inserted using text boxes, tables, or title styles.  Such page content is searchable and thus can be found using the website search (magnifying glass) icon.

  • PDFs: These are fixed format items generally stored in WCOwner’s MyDrive cloud storage.  They may be “popped out” or otherwise displayed where they are searchable using Adobe Readers. The HANDBOOK available on the website explains how “popped out” is used for searching.

  • Pictures/Images: These may contain words which generally will not be found by searching.

Navigation

• The Resident Website consists of a large number of pages that should be easily found by users. Since the width of users’ computer screens/cell phones is limited, drop down navigation tabs are used. Had they not been used Google Sites would have automatically formed a long tab labeled “More”.  By placing tabs into multiple subject groups, pages of interest are more easily located.

• Search icon (the magnifying glass on the upper right of each page) allows searches to be made throughout the entire site.  Persons can inquire for fellow college students, who has a certain phone number, and essentially most everything that was on directly entered webpages (e.g. Biography pages)

• Hidden from Navigation Pages are indicated by a slashed icon in edit mode page listings.  These are pages excluded from the Navigation index and are accessed by link from "regular" webpages.   

• Display - These are pages accessible to all viewers through links from other pages.  Best example is in Biographies where “Year Arrivals” use a picture index rather than a list of individual last names.

• “Secret Instructional/Backup” - These pages are “memory” pages for WCOwner.  They can be for instruction or for holding backup copies of particularly complex code.  The Week Number found at the top of the Dining webpage is backed up in such a way. 

Home page

• Alert Banner (all pages or just home page). This feature at the page tops where it is most likely to be read is for temporary short prominent messages,  

• Special Announcements (from Administration) on Home Page. This area is maintained exclusively by the Executive Assistant in Administration using a MyDrive document file as its source,

• Alerts on Home Page - Eight organizations (Chapel, Activities, Buildings and Grounds, Development, Marketing, Dining, Fitness, and Resident Life) each have the ability to make special dated announcements. These are automatically shown for “Today” and “Tomorrow”.  Past dated alerts disappear from publication with no action by the user  The respective department editor is, however, responsible for clearing the old past date entries from the input spreadsheet.

• General Format of Home Page is maintained by WCOwner

Biographies

This page was designed to allow individuals to learn about their fellow residents.  It was broken into a “Year of Arrival” pictorial index.  The idea was to allow people to find others for whom they do not have a name. “Who is that person that I think moved in last year?”  "I wonder who else here at WC went to the same school as I did?" "Who else here has golf as a hobby?" This facility was designed to provide an alternative to paging through the Strickler library voluminous notebook of biographies.

A second reason for the multiple indexing was to avoid a single slow loading picture index. Anything on the biography pages can be found using the search facility available on all web pages.

See also  Instructions - Bio Pages original