building academic websites (in the real world)

Brian Farr Systems Manager College of Staten Island

CUNY IT Conference ~ 12.6.13

Valerie Forrestal Web Services Librarian

College of Staten Island

Clear, concise and logical navigation Simple, elegant design Advertise news and upcoming events Central search box for finding resources Repository for forms, policies, hours and

contact information

Site organization o Will your page groupings make sense to users? o Deep hierarchical design may require extra navigation, such as

secondary nav menus and/or breadcrumb links o Folder structure will also affect how links look

How many templates? (1 vs. 2 column design – how will mobile handle side column? Drop it? Stack it?

What kind of navigation? What nav should go on every page

External links? Deep footer?

Source: “How to Create a Directory Structure

Search Engines Rock To” by Stoney deGeyter

(http://www.searchengineguide.com/ston

ey-degeyter/how-to-create-a-directory-structure-sear.php)

How did we get here?

Joomla: • Customizations prevented

updates • Messy back-end/admin

interface • Old, vulnerable plugins

Why WordPress? • Any CMS will do what we need • Leanest • Easiest • Least intimidating to librarians • Better separation between

code & content

Learning curve Will you need user

accounts? Will it continue to be

supported? Server requirements Back end code

Versioning Functions vs. content Site performance

brian.farr@csi.cuny.edu valerie.forrestal@csi.edu

Site @ did.csi.cuny.edu/wp

Slides @ vforrestal.com

For questions or more info: