How do I arrange a special look-and-feel for my site?
Look and feel web policy
If you are a Content Manager for a site in a multi-site ComWeb Instance, you will need to contact your ComWeb Instance Administrator to assign the look-and-feel for your website - and all websites in the Instance. As subject matter experts, it is the responsibility of Content Managers to provide and maintain content - independently from the presentation of content.
Some organisation's web policy mandates one common corporate style to be used across all sites in the organisation's web presence, whereas others believe some sites benefit from unique branding.
eg, Within the Australian Department of Defence there are many conservative web sites, though some modern, colourful and effective samples are:
Team Australia
Capability Development Executive
In some organisations it is the Communications or Marketing section's responsibility to organise and approve the corporate identity including website look-and-feel. In other organisations it is up to the web managers, while in others individual site owners may have any look-and-feel they determine suitable for the target audience. In all these cases, an Instance Administrator assigns one or more sites to particular ComWeb look-and-feel templates, consisting mainly of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).
The look-and-feel or corporate branding for ComWeb websites is contained in what is called the website's Presentation layer. This includes layout/placement, operation/behaviour, navigation/menus, colours and corporate images for branding, etc. The Presentation Layer sits over the Content Layer to effect the content of the site.
While a site's Presentation Layer is assigned by an Instance Administrator, depending on the web policy of the organisation it may or may not be appropriate for any specific site to have the same presentation as other sites.
eg, Within the ACT Scouts ComWeb web presence of 80+ web sites:
Web policy is for all web sites to adopt the same look and feel to portray all web sites in the group as part of an organisation with a unified web presence. This benefits visitors to the site with a consistent operation, menu terminology, position of site components, etc, etc.
Within the ACT Scouts, there are variations on the theme, where Scouts, Venturers, Rovers, etc have similar branding though with different colours to represent each group with scouts.
Therefore if a particular Scout Group wanted a different look and feel, the answer would be no.
However, if the "Scout's Gang Show" (a big annual gala song and dance extravaganza), wanted something to stand out from all other sites for the preceeding month, then the answer may be yes.
If your Instance or Group policy allows, you could then move to the design stage.
Design
If you have a current web site or design in mind, this makes the job of creating the Presentation layer easier.
If not, you may get some ideas from surfing the net. We must consider copyright, though you may get some good ideas from other web sites with regard to style, navigation, presentation etc. Alternatively you may engage us or a web graphics design firm to design your new web site's look-and-feel. You will need to provide your corporate images, logos and colours.
CompuCraft can:
- quote time and materials for concept and graphics design,
- provide some graphics firms names, or
- provide advice to other graphics firms you may already deal with.
Items to consider include layout, colours, banners, logos, navigation, presentation, operation, fonts, etc. Include the home page, secondary pages, tables, links, sections, footer, search, site map, etc.
Cascading Style Sheet & Graphics Development
While the concept design can be done by any good graphics designer, the actual specification is through a series of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) with specific markup (div construct, hierarchy and naming conventions, etc) as shown to the right.
ComWeb V4.2 CSS can be developed or adapted by a CSS developer like CompuCraft or other web graphics firms specialising in CSS and optimisation of web graphics.
Contact CompuCraft for further details.
Implementation
Once developed, the CSS files and images are provided to your Group Administrator for uploading and allocation to your site or group of sites.
CompuCraft can provide advice and training to Instance Administrators as required to achieve this.