Website Redesign

November 2003

Objective of the Redesign

There were three main objectives for the redesign:

1. To improve the look and feel of the web site in order to make it easier to navigate and to make the content clearer.
2. To increase browser support. Previously the site only worked well with Internet Explorer but now the redesigned site supports all leading browsers including Opera, Mozilla and Internet Explorer.
3. The final requirement of the redesign was that the new web site is accessible to all users and particular consideration was made to blind and visually impaired users. See the accessibility article 2911032 for more details of this important project.

Improved Look and Feel

The look, feel and layout of the web site is entirely controlled by Cascading Style Sheets. This technology enables the content of the web site to be separated from the display. This benefits the web designer in terms of greatly reduced maintenance and also benefits the user with greater browser support and accessibility.

One key benefit is making any page on the site easily printable. You've probably seen icons on other sites saying 'click here for a printable version' and selecting this link displays the same page without headers, footers, navigation etc. Pages on this site are automatically printable, try it now by using the Print Preview option in your browser.

I would love to take credit for all this but all these techniques are well known and documented on the web. I am very grateful to the following sites for introducing me to these techniques.

• a list apart
• glish
• CSS MaxDesign
• Blue Robot

And to the following site for providing an excellent CSS reference

• meyerweb

Browser Support

"Anyone who slaps a 'this page is best viewed with Browser X' label on a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the Web, when you had very little chance of reading a document written on another computer, another word processor, or another network."
-Tim Berners-Lee in Technology Review, July 1996.

The easiest way to achieve support for the widest range of browsers is to follow standards. This site was built to be compliant with the HTML 4.01 transitional standard and has been checked for compliance using the validation facility at w3g. The CSS used was also checked for compliance with standards and finally the site was physically checked against the most popular browsers using the web site.

Resources

• HTML Validator select this link to check the results of HTML validation for this site.
• CSS Validator select this link to check the results of CSS validation for this site.