January 2005

Science Web sites Coordinated Under a Common Design

With the recent launch of the new Department of Mathematics web site, the College of Science Administration and Department sites now share a common design while maintaining their own uniqueness and tailored look. With this coordinated effort across the College, Science now provides a consistent experience for online visitors with similar navigations and easy to access College-wide resources. (cont. below)

The Science Web Team*, comprised of web designers and developers from all disciplines, followed the Purdue Identity and Graphic Standards manual to develop a brand layout for Science providing the necessary University, College, and Department elements. Following the web standards from the World Wide Web Consortium, the pages are designed to take full advantage of style sheets which separate the content from the visual presentation of the page. The result is a site that is more easily maintained with smaller source files and less reliance on images. Pages download faster and are easier to index by search engines. As Science continues to move its sites forward, the style sheets will allow designers and developers to provide various media specific views of the web content, such as for print and cell phones.

One of the most important accomplishments of the new coordinated layout is consistency. When browsing from site to site, the navigation location and order remain similar. The primary navigation, found on the left side of the page, follows a designated order of main areas and sub-areas while allowing for additions or subtractions as needed by each Department. The Science Portals, found in the horizontal gold bar, are housed by Science Administration. These pages are audience-specific for Prospective Students, Current Students, Alumni and Friends, and Faculty/Staff. The pages provide College-wide resources and eliminate the need for each Department to maintain duplicate copies.

The Team has put together some great sites. Take a look! There will be more to come in the months ahead as the College of Science continues to develop our online services and information.

*Science Web Team: Lead by Ann Knauth, Science Administration. Comprised of Laurie Iten and Rodney McPhail, Biological Sciences; Bob Wild, Chemistry; Nick Hirschberg, Computer Science; Chris Edwards, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences; Isaac Vetter, Mathematics; Becki Farley, Physics; and Cheryl Crabill and Cameron Smith, Statistics.

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