Transcript Evolution of Telex web sites

Evolution of Telex web sites
John Smart
GreyDuck Technology, Inc.
(651) 283-8689
Quick Overview
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First Domino web site
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Brief overview
What needed fixing after that
“WebTemplate” – flexible, tableless,
shared design
Lessons Learned
Why Lotus Domino?
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In ElectroVoice brand’s case: When their employee
maintaining the site left Telex around August, 2001,
there were 483 HTML files!
Lotus Notes clients already on the desktop
Lotus Domino was a fast way to get
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Security
Editing interface
Information Requests, On-Line Warranty Registration, Rep
Folders
Evolution
From zero, through “What do you want on the web?”
with a dozen product managers, to the web in three
months.
And then what?
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The next sites, copying design and tweaking
as we go, had some improvements:
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Better URLs
No popup windows for product pages
Better navigation (for users and search engines)
Smarter use of CSS
Meta-tags
Relative URLs (using the “base” tag)
Updating the old sites
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Before we went back, we wanted to
take one large step forward and achieve
a single template.
Therefore, flexible design needed.
CSS Tableless Design!
CSS Tableless Design
“Now we’re cooking!”
<div class=“header”> … </div>
<div class=“sidenav”> … </div>
<div class=“content”>
<div class=“relatedlinks”> … </div>
<h1>Our New Product</h1>
….
</div>
<div class=“footer”> … </div>
http://www.GreyDuck.com/tableless-demo/H-341.html
Lessons Learned CSS
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It’s tricky to be all-browser compatible.
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~4% still use Netscape 4 (only token CSS support)
IE doesn’t get CSS completely right either.
Structure your naked HTML correctly.
Buy TopStyle from www.bradsoft.com, or something
like it.
“The young man knows the rules, but the old man
knows the exceptions.” – Oliver Wendel Holmes
Lessons Learned
Business Web Sites
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Business-owned content is key to
having a site that’s kept up to date.
Involve the right people!
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Requests filtered on the business side
Lessons Learned
Search Engines
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Changing window titles moved
www.telex.com/duplication from 45th to 3rd on
Google!
PageRank: Each page casts “votes” for other
pages by what they link to. Don’t waste it.
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Don’t count on JavaScript links or menus
Site Maps are great
Breadcrumb navigation
Get others’ sites to link to the same URL
Next Steps
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Get the rest of the (IS-supported) Telex
sites onto the same version of the site.
Focus on directory-based search
engines.
Work with aural browsers (for the
blind), wireless devices, etc.
Competitive Advantage
Thank you!
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For more…
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Google PageRank explained
http://www.iprcom.com/papers/pagerank/
CSS Edge
http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/
Best article on CSS layout I’ve seen
http://www.alistapart.com/stories/practicalcss/
Latest version of what Telex is doing
http://www.telex.com/wireless
http://www.telex.com/WirelessMicrophones
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This User Group!
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[email protected]
Questions?