Technical Specifications

Naming Conventions

Folder names should start with a capital letter.  File names (wherever possible) should start with a lower case letter.  These conventions help distinguish directories from files on our Unix server.

Page names should be descriptive but not too long.  Words should be sensibly shortened wherever possible.  For instance, the directory/folder for Campus Resources was abbreviated CampRes.  One word titles are sometimes spelled out entirely if no easy abbreviation is possible.

Resolution

Due to the broad variety of web user skills and technology that are encompassed by Olympic College website users, we have designed a website interface that is optimized for a screen resolution of 800x600.  This design will appear "full screen" for users with this resolution and will be contained in the left side of the browser window on computers running at a higher resolution.  Few, if any, users would still be using the smaller and much older screen resolution of 640x480.

Page Width

As mentioned in other areas of the web guide, the table containing the content is optimized for 800x600 screen resolution, with a width of 775 pixels.  The left and right side navigation bars are allotted 15% each, while the main content area (white) is allotted 70% of this 775-pixel page width.  Please do not alter these settings.  Do not type unbroken text past the page border or use photos which violate the specified graphic sizes (see Standards & Guidelines, Graphic Elements) as these things will made the content frame wider than the header and footer, as well as eliminating the print buffer effect which allows all pages on the site to be printed without cutting off content text.

Search & Meta Tags

Please use the standardized Page Title format (see Standards & Guidelines, General Page Elements).  This descriptive title is one of the items that will be included in the search engine's review of the website data.

Please also include keyword meta tags on all pages (See the How Do I? section for details on adding keywords to your page).  Keywords are terms that readers using the search engine would use to find the current page.  They can be individual words or phrases, and each page can have multiple keywords associated with it.  Developing good keywords will improve your page's chances of coming up in a user search on the OC website.

Navigation

A top/left navigation hybrid has been designed.  A set of rollover menus are available in the top banner on every page of the site.  This top navigation is designed to offer easy access to all parts of the site based on user type: Current Students, Prospective Students, International Students, Staff & Faculty, Business & Community.

The left-side navigation bar contains Quick Links , which represent the links for the current section of the website.  For instance, on the About OC page, the Quick Links are only the pages and sub-sections within the About OC area.  However, under Public Information, which falls under About OC, the Quick Links reflect the Public Information links rather than About OC.  On a page with no sub-sections, the Quick Links displayed are that of the group that the page belongs to, and the current page location is highlighted in black (see Standards & Guidelines, General Page Elements).

The right-side navigation bar was partially designed as a "print buffer" to allow users who print the page to receive all the content on the page without having the right side cut off.  This right-side bar also contains the Related Links for each page.  Related Links are links to any page on the site related to the current page content, but not within the current section.  For example, Multicultural Services or Clubs & Organizations might be of interest to international students in the International Student Program area of the site, so these could be linked in the Related Links section.  Related Links may also include links to external sites, though these should be noted (see Standards & Guidelines, Link Elements).

In addition, the standard footer offers a consistent option for some of the most basic and common areas of the site, including the five user groups listed in the header (Current Students, Prospective Students, International Students, Staff & Faculty, Business & Community), the five main content areas of the site (About OC, Campus Resources, Getting Started, Learning, Student Services), informational links (Feedback, Equal Opportunity College, Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, Copyright), and common website features (Calendar, Directory, Jobs, Maps, OC Foundation, OC Poulsbo, OC Shelton, Site Map).  In addition this footer includes the college address, customized on the Shelton and Poulsbo pages to include the address of the respective campus rather than the main campus address.