13. Web Development 101
Most organizations, campuses, and
institutions now leverage content
management systems for building and
maintaining websites.
14. What does Open
Source Mean?
Open Source just means that the product is
freely developed, distributed, and supported
by its community.
It does not imply any security issues,
vulnerabilities, or inadequacies.
Much of higher education uses open source
for web development.
15. Just Because It’s Free…
The cost, rather than being on the product,
is in the users supporting and building
specific content for the system.
Most campuses (like Georgia Tech) open up
work created for the system to all of
campus and beyond.
18. That Being Said…
Our goal, then, is to make due with what
services and features (on- and off-campus)
we have!
But before then, let’s consider a few things
to consider when building a website.
19. 3 Main Points
1. Write for your audiences.
2. Do not reinvent the wheel unless necessary.
3. Organically organize your content.
20. Who is your audience?
The primary purchase of your website is to
appeal to your expected visitors and browsers.
This allows you to shape and mold your website
around those expected use-cases.
21. Who are your audiences
for your event websites?
Question!
22. Audience
Keep in mind your key audiences (visitors) who
will be visiting your website.
All of your text, menu links, and photos should
be easy to understand and relate to the
website’s purpose.
Keep acronyms, institute lingo, and technical
gibberish to a minimum.
23. Writing for Audiences
Keep in mind the mobile and
tablet audience.
These audiences account
for 20-30% of your traffic.
24. Writing for Audiences
Keeping mind how small these screens are for
reading, it’s good practice to keep your content
concise.
Rely on standard methods of separating content
(in-page links, menu organization) over long and
text-heavy pages.
25. Resist Reinventing
Remember that organization-provided web tools
and resources are your best friend.
Creating a custom theme or website layout is
usually not an efficient usage of time.
Most of your end-users will never complain
about things being ‘too similar’.
26.
27.
28. Organic Organization
It is imperative to structure your menu and page
content to be easy to understand.
In addition, don’t be afraid to spread out content
between numerous pages. Remember to link
where needed.
38. Where to Begin?
1. Create a list of pages for your website.
2. Organize those pages into structured menus.
3. Begin writing content.
39. Determining Pages
Think about what content you want to give out
to your end-users on your website.
You should ideally have one page for each
chunk of content on your website.
40. Determining Pages
Let’s consider a web development event:
Speakers
Registration
Location
About Us
Traveling
Sponsors
Contact Us
Become a Member
Become a Sponsor
Submit a Proposal
41. Creating Menus
Once you have your list of pages, creating
menus are as easy as stacking them under one-
another.
Common ways of doing this are:
1) Sticky notes.
2) Excel spreadsheet.
3) Whiteboard.
42. Creating Menus
Let’s consider a web development event:
Speakers
Registration
Location
About Us
Traveling
Sponsors
Contact Us
Become a Member
Become a Sponsor
Submit a Proposal
43. Creating Menus
Let’s consider a web development event:
Speakers
Registration
Location
About Us
Traveling
Sponsors
Contact Us
Become a Member
Become a Sponsor Submit a Proposal
44. Writing Content
Creating content (text, photos, videos) for your
pages.
A few key pointers for building attractive and
engaging content.
50. Please Do Not
• Use tables to structure sidebars, content.
• Use unexpected color combinations
• Use super small/undersized photos.
• Use photos without providing ‘alt text’.
• Use ‘click here’ link text.
56. WordPress Websites
Professional Web Presence is our shared
WordPress hosting on campus.
http://pwp.gatech.edu/
For non-Georgia Tech folks, consider using
wordpress.com for a similar experience.
https://wordpress.com/
57. SEO
For Search Engine Optimization (SEO), most
content management systems come with many
tools out-of-the-box to help.
Note that your content determine your SEO
ranking above almost all other attributes.
However, plugins do exist for your website
system of choice to help.
58. Google Docs/Forms
Need to get a simple form out there?
Google Forms (part of Google Docs) is free,
allows for exporting responses to a
spreadsheet, and is mobile-friendly.
Also worth noting that the Google Docs suite
(docs, sheets) are great for collaborative
working.
59. Google Drive
If you need to share a folder between
participants, Google Drive works flawlessly.
And it also works out-of-the-box with Google
Docs/Forms products as well.
60. Google Analytics
The forefront in visitor, search tracking and
statistics.
Key for determining:
1. How visitors are getting to your website.
2. Where visitors are browsing to.
3. Time-sensitive traffic flows.
63. Eventbrite
Eventbrite is the easiest way to manage tickets,
registration for a (free, paid) event.
Eventbrite also allows hassle-free attendee
exports.
64. YouTube
Use YouTube whenever possible for video.
Benefits:
1.) Captioning (legal requirement).
2.) Cross-platform compatibility.
3.) Ease of use, upload, embed.
65. AMAC
Need videos captioned or transcribed to meet
legal accessibility compliance?
AMAC ( http://amacusg.org/ ) provides low-cost
accurate captioning to University of Georgia
institutions.
66. Trello (project mgmt.)
Need help keeping ahead of deadlines, projects,
tasks, and deliverables for your event?
Trello provides small-team project management
for free.