Increased usability.
The templates improve
usability through consistency in
navigation and
information architecture. Usable sites increase productivity. Users
retrieve information more efficiently with sites built with the new templates
and avoid wasted time.
Device independence and liquid design.
The templates use
liquid design which helps support
device independence. A key to accessibility is to design for device
independence, so that pages work on any device that supports the openly
published standards. For Web content to be device independent, it should
be possible for a user to obtain a functional presentation associated with
its Web page identifier via any access mechanism. With the growth of PDAs,
and even Web site content delivered to cell phones, having accessible content
is becoming more important. Liquid design also helps to helps eliminate
horizontal scrolling. A liquid web page re-flows to fit a window no matter
what size window you pour it into. Most users strongly dislike horizontal
scrolling, except where they can realize that the nature of the content
made it inevitable.
Validation to web standards.
Templates have been
validated to the W3C
XHTML
Standard. This allows us to use the latest techniques to display our
site. XHTML has
added a number of elements and attributes that enrich accessibility. We
validate to web standards for future web compatibility. It is the only way
to know that code won't fail as the syntax develops.The
validation to web
standards allows for future web compatibility. It is the only way to
know that code won't fail as the syntax develops. The templates also use
Cascading Style Sheets that have been validated through W3C.
They comply with CSS Techniques for Web Content Accessibility
Guidelines 1.0. CSS is a great way to specify the look
of a site, e.g. fonts, colors, leading, margins, typefaces, and other aspects
of style without compromising its structure. The templates use imported
style sheets which are a powerful way to apply global rules to many pages
at one time.
Increased branding of the UMD site.
The templates increase a consistent, clearly recognizable "look-&-feel" for the total UMD web site.
Increased maintainability and efficiency.
The templates
allow redundant items to be easily used repeatedly. This reduces site
maintenance. For instance the templates have built-in University of Minnesota
required elements like equal opportunity statement, date of last revision,
copyright information, link to the University's privacy statement etc.
Increased cost savings.
Don't reinvent the wheel. Much thought and effort has gone into the templates.
Take advantage of this valuable resource and save University funds.