View north from Windmill towards Lose Hill

About this website

Design considerations

Design considerations

The Hucklow website was developed in HTML and CSS rather than more advanced languages, so as to reach as wide an audience as possible, in the knowledge that our intended audience might not have the most up to date PCs or browsers. The agreed design guidelines were:

- use technologies suitable for all platforms and browsers where possible.

- use HTML, CSS and JavaScript but not server-side technologies as these are not available to us.

- Do not use Flash or multimedia material requiring browser add-ons.

- The sole browser add-on required to be Adobe Acrobat Reader, in order to use PDF rather than Word files as this is more secure.

- where possible, write for different PC screen resolutions, but not small hand-held devices at this stage.

- where possible, take account of access for people with disabilities including colour blindness. This meant avoiding complicated screen layouts.

- keep loading times to a minimum for dial-up lines. Indicate the sizes of unavoidably large documents, e.g. PDF files, so that users can make up their own minds whether to download the document.

- use a calm, serene style, with no flashing material or moving text.

The most complicated part of the site is the navigation bar, which is based on a bar in the Yahoo Developers Library. The site was developed in Dreamweaver 8.

We are looking into the use of Dreamweaver templates and Macromedia Contribute, with a view to villagers having more control over their own sections of the website. We are also planning to use XML for tables. Further work is necessary to ensure that villagers have the minimum level of browser to support these technologies.

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