Transcript Portals and Web Standards

Portals and Web Standards
Lessons Learned and Applied
David Cook
[email protected]
Copyright The University of Texas at Austin 2003. This work is the intellectual property of the author.
Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided
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UT Direct
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Background/History
UT’s Technology Environment
UT Direct 1.0
UT Direct 2.0 Vision
Web Standards
Challenges
A Bit of History
• President Faulkner’s State of the
University address in Fall 1999
• Original goals of this vision
– Improved quality of service
– Improved efficiencies
• Help students, faculty, and staff with
their university business
• Many services on the Web already
Technology Environment
• Unified databases
• Distributed application development;
175 trained developers
• ADABAS/Natural/webAgent
Sample Services Before UT Direct
UT Direct 1.0
• Launched in August 2000
• Customized and personalized
experience to students, faculty and staff
based on primary role
• Over 100 services
UT Direct 1.0 Development Effort
• 45 staff, 14,000 hours
• Estimated 50% of development hours
spent on browser issues
UT Direct 1.0
UT Direct Usage
• 195K total users
• Spring 2002
– 35K unique users per month
– 22K repeat visitors each month
Sample Services Before UT Direct
Similar Services After UT Direct 2.0
Issues faced with UT Direct 1.0
• Changing templates
• Browser problems and updates; 50% of staff
maintenance time
• Frames
• Some usability issues
• Component institution branding
• More granular role information needed
A vision for UT Direct 2.0
• Removal of frames
• Web standards (XHTML/CSS/DOM)
• Support for other UT System
components
• Inline functionality rather than just links
to services
UT Direct 2.0 Vision (continued)
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Support for non-webAgent technologies
Improved modularity and maintainability
Improved accessibility
Closer alignment with redesigned public
site
Implementing UT Direct 2.0
• Gathered developer community to
outline vision
• Developed UT Direct “API”
• Web standards education and
evangelization
• Usability/accessibility testing
• Interface guidelines
• Conversion
UT Direct 2.0
Anatomy of a UT Direct 2.0 Service
Why Were Web Standards Important
• Multiple browser problems
• Accessibility
• Developers would not be drawing the
complete page
• Benefits to developers, end users, and
support staff
• Reduced costs
Validation Tool for Secure Pages
Sample Tab Code
<div id="headerBottom">
<span
class="nonStandard">Tabs:</s
pan>
<div class="tab">
<a class="activeTab"
href="/utdirect/index.WBX"
title="My Home Tab"
accesskey="1">My Home</a>
</div>
<div class="tab">
<a class="nonActiveTab"
href="/utdirect/bookmarks/bk
ms_list.WBX" title="My
Bookmarks Tab">My
Bookmarks</a>
</div>
Bookmarks
Before – 6 pages
After – 60 lines
Logon Screen Warning
Standard vs. Non-standard Browsers
Benefits of UT Direct Development
• Common look and feel for UT and other
components
• Service can be easily bookmarked
• Service usage can be logged
• Developers make fewer interface
decisions
Component Support
Challenges in Development
• Technical Issues
– webAgent 1 and webAgent 2
– CSS Issues
– Content Registry
• Political issues
– Conversion
– Priorities
– Control
Future
• Move toward Java for portal framework
• Still must support webAgent
applications
• Closer examination of uPortal features
• More open architecture
• Better alignment with public site
URLs
• Information on UT Direct
http://utdirect.utexas.edu/utdirect/
• Web Standards and CSS
– World Wide Web Consortium
www.w3.org
– Web Standards Project
http://www.webstandards.org/
– Wired Redesign
http://www.wired.com/news/explanation.html
– ESPN Redesign
– CSS-discus Wiki
http://css-discuss.incutio.com/
– The DAO of Web Design
http://www.alistapart.com/stories/dao/