How many of our websites are built around the internal hierarchies of academic and non-academic departments rather than 'products and services' that the 'markets' may want. Still.
And how do we convince internal stakeholders that what the external users need is actually best?
A subject that is growing in popularity in the web development community is that of designing your sites for mobile first then progressively enhancing to scale up for larger displays; tablets, 'desktops' (I include laptop in my definition of desktop)...televisions? (IPTV is coming). This is quite a significant change in approach to the traditional development of desktop first then wondering how to deliver to mobile and ...more »
A subject that is growing in popularity in the web development community is that of designing your sites for mobile first then progressively enhancing to scale up for larger displays; tablets, 'desktops' (I include laptop in my definition of desktop)...televisions? (IPTV is coming). This is quite a significant change in approach to the traditional development of desktop first then wondering how to deliver to mobile and focuses on the essentials you want to deliver to fit with a mobile context.
Also, how do the institutional web systems like the VLE & CMS approach this? Are they doing effectively or is the reliance on these systems choking the overall flexibility of delivery to a student population that is increasingly accessing the web on mobile devices?
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With many in the wider web community advocating the implementation of technologies such as HTML5, CSS3 and WAI-ARIA now, should the HE sector follow suit? Do universities hold fire, dive in or are there alternatives? Perhaps a pseudo-implementation that allows us to start using some features of these technologies today while guaranteeing a quality experience for all (even IE6-8 users with Javascript switched off, disabling ...more »
With many in the wider web community advocating the implementation of technologies such as HTML5, CSS3 and WAI-ARIA now, should the HE sector follow suit?
Do universities hold fire, dive in or are there alternatives? Perhaps a pseudo-implementation that allows us to start using some features of these technologies today while guaranteeing a quality experience for all (even IE6-8 users with Javascript switched off, disabling many common work-arounds.)
This is something that I have been giving a lot of thought to, and I would like to see a workshop session dedicated to discussing the options.
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WordPress is best known as a blogging app, but in fact works very well as a lightweight CMS for small sites, especially with plugins for functions such as event management. Best of all, it's UI is very intuitive and so you shouldn't get many support calls from users if you are the supporter for the system. If self hosting isn't an option, many hosting companies, as well as wordpress.com, offer WordPress as part of their ...more »
WordPress is best known as a blogging app, but in fact works very well as a lightweight CMS for small sites, especially with plugins for functions such as event management. Best of all, it's UI is very intuitive and so you shouldn't get many support calls from users if you are the supporter for the system.
If self hosting isn't an option, many hosting companies, as well as wordpress.com, offer WordPress as part of their service.
So, if you'd like to see a demo of the rich functionality of WordPress, and the ease of setting up a WordPress site with your own domain I'm happy to oblige.
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We're hearing an awful lot about Mobile Apps and small-screen device use of web sites. Particularly in the case of Apps, all we ever hear is that there were xxx,000 downloads of the app in yyy days. I'd be very interested in any case study which has taken a more in depth look at mobile statistics. e.g. Having launched an App and measured downloads, how many return users of the app are there; are there any patterns in ...more »
We're hearing an awful lot about Mobile Apps and small-screen device use of web sites.
Particularly in the case of Apps, all we ever hear is that there were xxx,000 downloads of the app in yyy days. I'd be very interested in any case study which has taken a more in depth look at mobile statistics. e.g. Having launched an App and measured downloads, how many return users of the app are there; are there any patterns in use of the information/functionality exposed by the App in its other locations? 'normal' web content, portals, intranets, etc.
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How are UK university websites/social media shaping up compared to the competition overseas? Contributors to the workshop would give a 10 minute presentation comparing their Web presence with a key competitor overseas.
A workshop on free/cheap and easy-to-use online services offered by third parties. Contributors would share case studies of how their institution used a particular service (rather than build an in-house solution). The service could be anything from conference management to running a virtual open day.
~ Or ~ Yes, there is an app for that Mr Jobs, it's called the browser! The web development community fought long and hard to get browser vendors to support open standards properly. However, the current fad for smart phone apps threatens to lead us back to fragmentation every bit as worse as the days of the browser wars, or possibly worse still. So, can HTML & CCS3 based web apps counter this trend? How hard hard they ...more »
~ Or ~ Yes, there is an app for that Mr Jobs, it's called the browser!
The web development community fought long and hard to get browser vendors to support open standards properly. However, the current fad for smart phone apps threatens to lead us back to fragmentation every bit as worse as the days of the browser wars, or possibly worse still.
So, can HTML & CCS3 based web apps counter this trend? How hard hard they to build compared to a conventional 'desk top' site?
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Social Web