Colophon
An explanation of the process of building
LorenCrawford.info.
Usability
LorenCrawford.info has tried to make the website extremely
user friendly.
Design
By design, LorenCrawford.info has been carefully
crafted into the visually stimulating site that it is.
It has contrasting colors for easy identification, a
large navigation bar, with drop-downs that are easy to
understand and click on. Its alignments are also designed
to make things work well with a small screen (800x600).
I have implemented a color scheme on the navigation bar,
so that the tab changes colors for the one that you are
in. It is not breadcrumb designed, but it is clear which
folder for the user. These folders are the basis of
the easy to see hierarchy of the website. Different
headings were used according to size, for contrast and
also for concise proximity. The fonts, serif for headings
and sans-serif for reading in block are used appropriately.
Universal
Also, our website has implemented a Google Search bar
which enables searching on our website exclusively
or on the internet in general.
We included code that would work on all browsers, and
the most up-to-date browsers get the best version,
including Safari, Opera and Firefox. We are ready with
CSS3 implementation when that is released as well.
Links
The links on the website maintain the normal underline
which is familiar to users. Also, the links change color
with hovering over them, being previously used or while
being clicked on.
Return on Investment
Less is more
As part of keeping costs low, this website was first
designed using paper. Once the plan was designed, then
and only then was the site designed. Less words were
used, which actually saves on time, because more fluff
takes needless time. If it isn't vital, we threw it out
back at the paper stage of the process. We used only one
really timely implementation, the drop-down menu. This
however is a one-time operation and does not have to
be formatted ever again.
Modularization
Using modularization, we were
actually able to do the header, footer, and a few
other implements, like the "Top Story" and "Lastest
Quirk" so that they only have to be written once.
This makes maintainance less of a hassle.
Testing
As part of our methodology, LorenCrawford.info strives to
test as we upload. That makes a mistake a quicker fix.
We don't like making mistakes and catching them early
makes them much easier to find and to repair. We test
using the W3C, and have provided buttons in the footer
to test them faster.
Ready for the near future
We have also implemented quick switches for CSS3 in
our modularization for their new layout. That should
save in later maintainance.
Search Engine Optimization
LorenCrawford.info currently has eliminated all tables
from its website for easing the search engine optimization
however, if we do implement data tables, for whatever reason,
we will be using captions for searching purposes. Our
code is also written so that it can be easily seen when
searched in my own searchbar and through Googles main
browser.
Web Standards
LorenCrawford.info strives to hold to web standards as
issued from the W3C. By doing so, we have passed their
own testing materials and have provided their seal of
approval on each site. We have individual tested all
sites and found them to be holding to those web standards.
