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There is a lot more to web development at the UF College of Pharmacy than just knowing HTML. You need to be familiar with web security issues, the standards set by the university and by the college, the student computer requirements, the needs of a worldwide target audience, the issues of ADA compliance, and have the maturity and restraint to create professional looking websites that reflect well on the university and college as well as promote your immediate goal, whether it is for a course or a department.
http is under attack at all times
no 3rd party exe or dll
no asp
no frontpage extensions
uf web standards
see http://www.webadmin.ufl.edu for
each uf web page must have
best not to use students or temp
workers to create websites
if you do use this type of worker, arrangements must be made for
continuing support when they are gone
out of date or abandoned websites make the university look bad
might not want to put personal email addr on website since it can attract spam
might be better to use the generic webmaster acct which comes to me
content guidelines
see http://www.cop.ufl.edu/scr.htm for cop student computer requirement
recommend that you avoid non-standard plug-ins
standard plug-ins are listed in cop student computer requirement
must not use background music on cop network or
anything else that eats more than its share of bandwidth
your site should have links to
a web page is not an ms word
document
by that i mean you should not try to achieve a static design
viewers of your site could have
there is probably no need to worry
about old browser versions
frames and javascript are no longer exotic innovations
but you cannot expect to control the way your page looks on any
given screen
you should design your site with the idea that it will change to
fit the machine it is running on
you should not expect the user to install a plug-in to view your
site
exceptions are the standard plug-in in the student computer
requirement
acrobat reader & real player
your site should not operate differently on internet explorer
than on netscape
you are probably designing and testing on the uf campus
do not expect most users to have the same high speed connection
you do
you should try to test your design on a dialup machine not
affiliated with uf
there have been increasing
security problems with javascript
plan for the possibility that javascript could be disabled on any
given browser
gif & jpg images should be optimized for web (for example using photoshop)
scans should be optimized for web
this process is often trial and error depending on details of
image
should be optimized for web
use absolute links to objects not
on current site
use relative links to objects on current site
the idea is that all links be independent of the location of
current site
you should be able to move your site (for example to CD) with no
changes
check your html to be sure it does
not include refs to files on drive C:
if so, it will seem to work for you, but not for anyone else
avoid using unusual fonts
you don't know what fonts the viewer of your site will have
or what fonts the browser might substitute
if your web designer leaves and
has to be replaced (for example, by me)
unusual fonts will be an impediment to continuity of look and
feel of your site
i can provide you with the following services
the web server keeps statistics of ip numbers and accessed files
ornate or busy websites can become
tedious
large background images slow down loading
background music eats bandwidth and distracts and/or annoys user
animated gif decorations can distract user trying to read nearby
text
website festooned with doodads is the mark of an amateur
market research shows many people
still have low speed modems
be aware of the size of images and pdf'
do not resize images in html -- do
it in photoshop
images should be as small as possible in html files
photos of females on websites can
put the women in danger
posting home addresses & phone numbers can likewise cause
problems
never post social security numbers or bank account numbers
never put anything in your
webspace that you want kept private
such as exams or answer sheets
even if there is no link, file names can be guessed
or remembered from previous term
or passed on by previous generation of students
email addresses on websites can be
harvested and cause spam
avoid mailto which makes it all too easy for the harvester robots
avoid splash screens that
auto-jump to your real home page
they make it difficult for people to back out of your website
your website represents the
university to the entire world
a bad web design reflects badly on all of us
your securlty hole can put the entire campus at risk
Author Ned Phillips
Email ned@cop.ufl.edu
Updated 8-1-2005
College of Pharmacy