Southern Miss gets new website design

[tempatv]

http://www.usm.edu/

You can read here about some of the comments about the new site http://www.activeboard.com/forum.spark?forumID=24082&subForumID=36767&action= viewTopic&commentID=2837074&topicPage=

[aaron]

They must have done that in frontpage 98. Tell USM to call me, I'll let them borrow my Dreamweaver CD. By the way, their page doesn't even pass as valid HTML or CSS. And handicapped people are going to have problems with it also. Don't tell me you had anything to do with this temp.

[tempatv]

well, here's the story. pr did the front page, which i didnt care too much for. they asked me to work on the subpage template, which they wanted to be based on the texas state site - http://www.txstate.edu/MainSite/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=ae885965262cef00VgnVCM10000001 00007fRCRD . once i had it looking good i passed it on to pr, and they made alot of changes to the stylesheet i created. they made alot of the fonts bold and really big.

all of it was done in dreamweaver mx and it passes ibm's aDesigner with good scores. its using standard css that are scalable for the handicapped. it is also optimized for screen readers, which i tested myself using screen reader software. as far as compliance, its good, i always make sure of that it in all the sites i do. aDesigner is a great tool to check for blind and low vision compatability.

one of my main concerns is the navigation. its really hard to navigate around and its gonna be around 2 or 3 weeks until google is cached.

[aaron]

All of that stuff is standard now, newer websites are expected to adhere to Section 508 and W3C. This aDesigner software must be a year old or something. Navigation is the only thing I would have changed about the old site. It would take me 10 minutes to find what a football game time is. Doesn't look like too many other people like it either from the forum comments. I agree that it makes us look like a community college.

[tempatv]

aDesigner is da bomb, i just got the new release, it grades a little harder than the last version. http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/adesigner they have a demo that u can try. it tells you how long it will take for a screen reader to get to a certain area of a screen and also gives tips on how to make your site better for the visually impaired.

as far as Athletics goes, they have a link on the front page of USM for their site. they are one of the many campus organizations that are hosted off campus and the webteam has no access to those sites.

[subnet_rx]

what were the main reasons behind changing it?

[tempatv]

they are trying to make it more appealing and instead of it being used as an intranet by the current students, it will be more of an advertising presence on the web for prospective students. they are trying to increase enrollment. When the entire site gets rolled out, many current students will not need to use the www.usm.edu site. Students and faculty will be able to log into a my.usm.edu site. this site will be customizable, similar to logging in to the msn webpage. they can customize what they see, like mail, classes, grades, announcements, and so on. this site will hopefully be rolled out after the summer.

[cafe au lait]

they are trying to make it more appealing and instead of it being used as an intranet by the current students, it will be more of an advertising presence on the web for prospective students. they are trying to increase enrollment. When the entire site gets rolled out, many current students will not need to use the www.usm.edu site. Students and faculty will be able to log into a my.usm.edu site. this site will be customizable, similar to logging in to the msn webpage. they can customize what they see, like mail, classes, grades, announcements, and so on. this site will hopefully be rolled out after the summer.
Hey that sounds cool. :smile:

[geezerjoe]

You're a necromancer.

Stop making thread zombies. Somebody get my shotgun.

(Does anyone understand what I just said? ... Here's a hint ... I'm a nerd/geek/etc).

[aaron]

Hmm, I'm betting cafe au lait isn't. Which, is a good thing, I need to talk to people outside of my sphere every now and then :)

[cafe au lait]

:smt103 Are you saying I'm reserecting dead threads? Go get your shot gun. I'm not a nerd/geek/etc, but I think I might be a necromancer. I tell you one thing. I am DEFINENTLY too lazy to go get a dictionary to look it up, so :smt110