Monday, September 13, 2004

Navigation Naming Conventions

&

Content Editing Review

In Attendance: Valentina Bettencourt, Web Services; Cynthia Milionis; Web Services; Anna Lincoln, Continuing Medical Education; Amy Anderson, Dermatology; Cindy Taylor, Finance; Kathy Bates, Compliance; Kerstin Svendsen, Office of Student Affairs; Cristina Cicoletti, Office of Educational Technology; Gina Martinez, Association of Clinical Faculty; Joaquin Castillo Arana, Faculty Medical Group; Nicole Budd, Community Based Education; Christine Khuu, Academy of Medical Educators; Victoria Ruddick, OME; June Graham, Physical Therapy; Joaquin Castillo-Arana, Medical Group; Suzie Larson, Osher Center. We may have missed those who did not sign in.

1. Announcements:
• Cynthia has created several new banners for you to use on your sites. They are useful for announcing New Classes, Special Events, Lecture Series etc... They have been also been placed in the templates folder in a file called _graphics. (Note that I have moved all graphics to this location from your libraries.)
  
  
  
• We have made a few additions to the style guides. They are on the Photos, Graphics & Rich Media page and on the Guide to Font Formatting page. We have added more specific guidelines for these topics.
  
  
• Based on a great suggestion from Joaquin on our survey, we are pushing to hold regular working meetings. To quote Joaquin -
  
  "It would be helpful to have computers to work on in the meetings where we could actually see how topics pertain specifically to our individual sites. The meetings would be less oratory and more of a “hands on working meeting” which might be beneficial in helping webworkers hone in on specific issues with their site. This format would help make the time they spend on their own more efficient. Because of the various skill levels within the webworker program it would allow us to use each other, as well as Valentina, Beth and Cynthia as learning resources to improve our sites. It might also unwittingly move everyone towards a more uniform web standard."
  
  If you think this is a good idea, please contact Valentina and let her know so that we can advocate for it.
  
  
2. Presentation:
• We had a lively session with lots of participation. Cynthia Milionis discussed good navigation-naming techniques. We also reviewed content editing/web writing. Please review the tutorials, particularly if you were not able to attend the meeting.
  
  We did a bit of 'user testing' on our sites and all chipped in with suggestions and advice on how to rename some navigation and how to rework the content for a few sites.
  
  Many of you have asked for references to bring your content providers regarding, users' behavior on the web, particularly in regard to length of time spent on pages on on effective web-writing technique. We think the best is Jacob Nielson's work in this area. He pretty much 'wrote the book' with regard to web usability. Here are a few links for you, with information you can share with your content providers. The entire website is packed with useful information.
  
  How Users Read on the Web
  Be Succinct! (Writing for the Web)
  Inverted Pyramids in Cyberspace
  
  
3. New sites in progress:
   • Pediatrics - Hematology/Oncology Launched
   • Pediatrics - Resident's Extranet
     
     
4. Questions for the group:
   • Are there any topics you would like to see covered in our meetings? Please contact Valentina and let her know.