Web Design and Development

 

The application of solid, consistent standards for good markup, accessibility, and graphic design for the Web is very important. Communications uses standards that are recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and adopted by the leading Web professionals in post-secondary institutions around the world.

Communications has Web templates available for the entire University community to customize to an individual Department or unit's needs.

The graphic standards outlined for print publications must also be adhered to for the Web.

In the Summer of 2005 the Department of Communications and Public Affairs released a template to serve as the campus standard for Web design and development. It is currently being used on the University's home page, several top level Web sites, many faculty sites, and this site.

To use this template, download this file:

western-website-template.zip

and open it into a directory on your hard drive that you will be able to find later. One of the compressed files will be a Word document with instructions for implementation.

This template is constructed on three standards of Web design:

  • Good markup: the source for this template uses XHTML 1.0 and CSS for its standard, as recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium. A couple of excellent resources we used include:
  • Accessibility: This template aims to provide you with the basis for creating accessible Web pages in compliance with the World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Accessibility Initiative
  • Western’s standards for graphic design and branding: use of the tower logo and the colour purple are part of the Western brand and need to be used consistently throughout our publications

If you have any questions about Web design or development at Western, please don't hesitate to contact mhoy6@uwo.ca.

Optional Design Updates

 

The file below includes instructions on how to enhance your templates with new design elements introduced in January 2007, including rounded corners, grey gradient shading and a bottom right corner background picture.

2007_design_updates.zip

 

 

 

 

 

Also from this web page:

Contact

Mathew Hoy
Senior Web Designer,
Communications and Public Affairs
mhoy6@uwo.ca
x.88820