Re: Web standards and museum sites Summary
I asked one of our web designers to describe the technology we're using at the Walker Art Center: It was asked if there were any museum web sites using a standards based layout, and we here at the Walker are working on such a project. It's really more than just a redesigned web site, it's a bunch of projects that will really change the way we work and think about our data and its output. First and foremost is the redesign of our web site, which we started about a year ago. It will be output in XHTML 1.0 Transitional, uses CSS and the like, basically following the W3C standards as much as possible. This of course gives us all the benefits mentioned elsewhere, but it's also much more than that. When we started thinking about the redesign, we knew we wanted to house all of our data in a database. The old Walker web site was mostly static files and was very difficult to maintain. The other thing we wanted was the ability to use the data entered not just on the web site, but in other forms as well. This led us to use an open source technology called Axkit. Axkit is basically an XML application server, that lets you translate XML into any other format, using XSL. The first benefit of this approach is it separates the backend logic from the presentation logic. Thus, the designer isn't stepping on the developer's toes when working on the frontend design, and the developer isn't messing with the design when working on the backend logic. The only real caveat here is that the XML schema must be agreed upon for both the developer and the designer, which is fairly easy. Basically how it works is that the developer writes Axkit code to pull data out of the database and into an XML format. The designer than uses XSL to translate that XML into any other format, in our case with the redesign it's XHTML. What becomes even more powerful is that since the XML data can be translated to any other form, we can use the same data and XML to output to just about any device. For example, for our upcoming online calendar, we're outputting an RSS feed for news aggregators. This literally took us minutes to implement since we're using the same XML used on the online calendar, and just formatting it as RSS instead of XHTML. Soon we will take this one step further and output in vCal format, which is a format used in various calendaring systems (such as iCal on Mac OSX), using the exact same original XML data. But that's really just the beginning. A lot of applications now use XML for data importing and we're finding a lot of different ways to use the data from our databases on various types of output. All of the Flash on our redesigned web sites will use XML for dynamic image and data loading. We can easily make WAP versions of our sites for cell phones and PDA's. And it goes beyond just "web" devices. One of our goals is to have interactive signage in the new expansion of the Walker Art Center. These signs can be driven from the exact same database and dynamic XML, allowing us to reuse our tools and data throughout our new building. Another goal is to give XML output to our design department, which they can then import into Adobe Indesign for all of their content for things like our print calendar, etc. It's pulled from the same database as our online calendar. Thus our database becomes the container for which all of our data at the museum is placed. To do this we're also building a custom web-based admin system to manage all of this data. The process of this is almost complete and will allow staff here to enter data of various types to be used in the different ways described above. This is not only for content, but also our media (images, movies, music, PDF's, etc) will be stored and managed through this admin system. This gives us one place to manage most everything we need, and includes an entire approval process for both text and images, various permissions, privlages, etc. It changes the way we have done things in the past, but greatly simplifies and expands it. We are lucky enough to have an in-house staff of four full time employees dedicated to these projects in our New Media department. Our next big goal is the middle of February when the Walker Art Center closes for construction of our building expansion, and we will launch the first phase of our web redesign. It will be a mixture of different looks and feels under the concept of "neighborhoods" where each department/program gets its own unique site, all under the umbrella of the Walker Art Center. Not every neighborhood will be finished in February, we plan to finish out the site and the other things mentioned by the time the Walker reopens in February 2005. It's been a ton of work (and will continue to be), but the work we've been doing really gives us a solid foundation to build upon for the future. Brent Gustafson -- Robin Dowden Director, New Media Initiatives Walker Art Center robin.dow...@walkerart.org 612.375.7541 walkerart.or
Re: Web standards and museum sites Summary
Douglas MacKenzie said: > At 11:59 09/01/04 -0500, Andrew Macdonald wrote: > >> As the discussion for web sites based on standards seems to be >>falling into the usual web based battle about why should we use >> standards > > It certainly wasn't part of my argument. My point was if you want to > control the output of your content to different media it is better to do > this by holding > it all in a database not in a tagged document. Sean thought this > couldn't be done. Whoa! I never said that! > I assure him it can. The last 30 large-scale websites > I have been involved with have all been built this way and the same > databases have been used for print output, CD-ROMs, touch screen > displays and, with appropriate XML filters, data exchange with other > applications and organisations. The way you have put it only makes sense to me if you're not dealing with documents or anything textual above the level of the phrase, e.g. titles, creators, dates, etc. for works of art that can be fed field-by-field into formatted output. But what would you do with a description of work of art running for several paragraphs, with titles and quotations that required specific formatting. It's great to have that in a database, but in what format? I deal with database-backed websites all the time, too, and our in-progress redesign is one step toward more dynamic database-driven content, but there is a difference between, say, a collections database and a content-management system. The former can be utterly output-agnostic while the latter has to store documents that can't be analyzed into fields except for metadata about the content, so you are going to end up storing the documents in something like HTML or XML. For my money, though, devices should serve the purpose the content and not the other way around. That includes not inventing another unnecessary document format when an existing one should do. So I get frustrated when something new comes out that can't handle HTML or XML. > Discussion of standards, though, has a deeper significance. This seems > to dominate in Web development in periods when creativity has dried up. > E-commerce salesmen in finance and insurance a few years ago were > using metaphors of shanty town building of websites being replaced by a > recognised building code in an attempt to woo conservative institutions > to reinvest in the latest Sun boxes and Oracle software: we've no new > ideas so buy some new kit in the meantime. This description has a very short historical horizon. The standards were always there at least in the form of the HTML DTD's since HTML 2.0, but ideas like validation were not on the radar of the the rapidly developing internet-culture. I never talk to e-commerce salesmen, so I can't say whether your right or wrong about that, but things like the Web Standards Project came from designers whose creative energies where being sapped creating multiple versions of pages for different browsers--not different devices, just different versions of the same device. It's a fight against moving targets -- why should providers of web content have to worry about tomorrows "inovation" from Microsoft? > I feel quite despondent about > museums and Web use at the moment: I can't remember when I > last saw a genuinely new idea implemented and things we talked about at > conferences 5 or 6 years ago are just being trotted out time and time > again: cauld kale rehet, which I trust is a phrase familiar to someone > called Macdonald ! This is a well-placed concern, I think we just have different approaches to the same problem. > > The most glaring deficiency, to me, is a general failure to use the Web > to create genuine educational experiences in museum websites and to > reach new audiences or even existing audiences in a way with which they > feel comfortable. Of course all institutions have different missions and > remits, and I don't pretend to know that of the Brooklyn Museum of Art. > The last US census, though, showed 28.1 million people in that country > speak Spanish in the home, only slightly more than half claimed fluent > English and 2.2m of these Spanish speakers live in NYC. Should engaging > this audience not be a higher priority than catering for those who > choose to use text-only Lynx browsers? Well structured, well designed web pages save time, effort, and money down the road. I know because our current web site is a nightmare to manage. Web staff is limited (to me and that's not all I do) so I can't even begin to think about translations until I remedy this situation. Valid markup, separation of content and layout are part of well structured and well designed web pages. In my experience, when you think about Lynx and the blind you tend to avoid other pitfalls that will rob your time and creative energies later. > I bet there are a few > people around the world who would be interested in reading about the > museum's Egyptian collection in a language other
Re: Web standards and museum sites Summary
At 11:59 09/01/04 -0500, Andrew Macdonald wrote: As the discussion for web sites based on standards seems to be falling into the usual web based battle about why should we use standards It certainly wasn't part of my argument. My point was if you want to control the output of your content to different media it is better to do this by holding it all in a database not in a tagged document. Sean thought this couldn't be done. I assure him it can. The last 30 large-scale websites I have been involved with have all been built this way and the same databases have been used for print output, CD-ROMs, touch screen displays and, with appropriate XML filters, data exchange with other applications and organisations. Discussion of standards, though, has a deeper significance. This seems to dominate in Web development in periods when creativity has dried up. E-commerce salesmen in finance and insurance a few years ago were using metaphors of shanty town building of websites being replaced by a recognised building code in an attempt to woo conservative institutions to reinvest in the latest Sun boxes and Oracle software: we've no new ideas so buy some new kit in the meantime. I feel quite despondent about museums and Web use at the moment: I can't remember when I last saw a genuinely new idea implemented and things we talked about at conferences 5 or 6 years ago are just being trotted out time and time again: cauld kale rehet, which I trust is a phrase familiar to someone called Macdonald ! The most glaring deficiency, to me, is a general failure to use the Web to create genuine educational experiences in museum websites and to reach new audiences or even existing audiences in a way with which they feel comfortable. Of course all institutions have different missions and remits, and I don't pretend to know that of the Brooklyn Museum of Art. The last US census, though, showed 28.1 million people in that country speak Spanish in the home, only slightly more than half claimed fluent English and 2.2m of these Spanish speakers live in NYC. Should engaging this audience not be a higher priority than catering for those who choose to use text-only Lynx browsers? I bet there are a few people around the world who would be interested in reading about the museum's Egyptian collection in a language other than English too. And, if you do intend to produce a multilingual website, creation and maintenance is an awful lot easier if all your content is in a database with web-pages built on the fly. Douglas The Highland Clearances http://www.theclearances.org --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.512 / Virus Database: 309 - Release Date: 19/08/03 --- You are currently subscribed to mcn_mcn-l as: rlancefi...@mail.wesleyan.edu To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-mcn_mcn-l-12800...@listserver.americaneagle.com
Web standards and museum sites Summary
As the discussion for web sites based on standards seems to be falling into the usual web based battle about why should we use standards I thought it might be useful to sum up the reason why using standards based web design is a good idea as well as point out where these standards fail. Just so my bias is clear I fall firmly into the camp of using standards based web design but I know it's limits. Pros 1) Search engine optimization By using web standards the text to code ratio of your web pages falls to the point where you have more textual information on the page than hundreds of tags. This make the web spiders and crawlers index much more of your site and gives you a much higher profile in all the search engines. 2) Document Reuse As mentioned web pages written in a standard based format can be reused and converted into many different formats-whether that be Word Documents, PDF's, or printable pages, one page can be used for all formats. 3) Accessibility This is perhaps the most important aspect of web standards it allows for your web document to be seen and accessed on any system /software. Those who are blind can use a screen reader which is almost impossible using table based layout. Those with older computer systems (e.g. most of those outside of North America and Europe) can see the content of your site with older browsers or a text only browser without the need for a text-only site. No one likes being left out even if you are not using IE, can you really afford to alienate those using something else? Most people would not like it if someone designed a great site and then posted a message that say "Sorry this site designed for Mozilla - no IE allowed". However it seems that it is okay to post a message that says "This site designed for IE - you can't use a browser of you choice". 4) Maintenance and Money By designing a site using web standards (i.e. CSS, XHTML, WAI, etc.) you are creating a site that is much easier to maintain. No longer do you have to hunt through thousands of line of javascript and nested table to add content or fix errors. All the layout is held in an organized CSS file and the content in the XHTML file. This was the original idea when HTML was first released, however the browsers back in 1996 could not handle CSS very well so people started using browser hacks and "This Site best Viewed With..." messages. This ease of maintenance and well coded pages leads directly to savings on your bottom line. You can now concentrate on creating content instead of laying it out. These smaller file sizes also lead to savings in bandwidth. With a file size of 10k for the XHTML file (CSS files are cached-download it once for a site and use it over and over) your bandwidth usage will drop and save money. 5) Stability (taken directly from http://www.webstandards.org/learn/faq/#p3 they say it better than I could) Most web standards are generally designed with forward- and backward-compatibility in mind - so that data using old versions of the standards will continue to work in new browsers, and data using new versions of the standards will "gracefully degrade" to produce an acceptable result in older browsers. Because a web site may go through several teams of designers during its lifetime, it is important that those people are able to comprehend the code and to edit it easily. Web standards offer a set of rules that every Web developer can follow, understand, and become familiar with: When one developer designs a site to the standards, another will be able to pick up where the former left off. Cons 1) Pixel Perfect The usage of standard based layouts is still in it's infancy but it is growing fast. You cannot get pixel perfect layouts and the same look across all platforms. However, you don't need pixel perfect layouts, if you want one post PDF's. The web is about the user not the manufacturer. They decide how they want to view a page and you as a good web citizen should accommodate that. Don't force them to use a certain technology if they don't want to. Yes your page will not look the same from browser to browser, but this is not the print world. We must get away from the need and thoughts that the web is print. It is not - it is flexible and variable, standards take this into account. 2) Hacks Because there are many different browsers, there are many different way to interpret CSS rules. IE does it one way (sometimes very wrong) and the others another. This lead to hacks in CSS that take into account the problems with the various browsers. This is something to be avoided is possible but in practice it really cannot be done. The best method therefore is to minimize what hacks are used and try to stick to the standards as much as possible. Until all browsers interpret CSS rules some hacks will have to be used. 3) Lack of Knowledge and Tools There are lots of peop
