Redesign Plan
for Amstat Online Pages

Rationale

• New templates – one to two days
• Apply new templates to existing pages (level 2 and below) – four weeks
• New home page – 3 months

• Level 1 page
• To setup a home page that is the simple, visually pleasing directory to the entire site – "cover of the book"
• Level 2 pages
• Design 10 to 12 "main" pages that will be "chapter headings of the book".
• These pages direct the viewer to all related material for that "chapter".
• Lower level pages
• Contents of the "chapter"
• Navigation as appropriate
• Discover/develop new tools and guidelines for easy page updates
• Identifying out of date pages
• Giving appropriate staff limited access to update their pages

• Avoid duplication of content
• Header and footers delivered via templates (one source for change)
• Includes datestamp
• Enhance use of white space to promote attractiveness and readability and ease of modification
• Guidelines and/or tools for staff and members to design new pages and modify existing pages (see Technical Guidelines for Site Hosting for important links, including the Web Accessibility Initiative)
• Clear tags/links to main ASA functional units (e.g. level 1 page bullets) (see note below from WebMaster)
• Organize pages into folders by delivery (how does an AP stat teacher find a BAPS workshop?) rather than by ASA structural units
• News – short and sweet. UPDATED PRESS RELEASES!
• Maintenance of dated materials (need a good process) Single point of update for critical information (prices, annual deadlines)
• Review process
• Redesign, Fall 2000: ASA Staff, Amstat Online Editorial Board, Executive Team
• Annual review of site design (Fall of the year to discuss things that came up at JSM)
• Release on January 1^st of following year

"When we redid the Press Room, all of the pages had

<DIV ALIGN="CENTER"><CENTER>
...
</CENTER></DIV>

We saw this as redundant, so we took out the extra <CENTER>...</CENTER> and everything worked fine. Then Tim said that Netscape doesn't recognize the <DIV ALIGN="CENTER"> and that is why the other tag was there. However, all the pages are centered, even in Netscape, and we're wondering why....any ideas?"

Thanks for askiing about this. <CENTER> is an "old" tag and has been replaced by <DIV ALIGN="CENTER"> for newer browsers. You were using a new version of Netscape. The older versions still do not recognize div align. Please do NOT remove redundant tags. They are there for a reason. ASA has many members who are not on the cutting edge of technology. Browser compatibility is a challenging issue and it may even get worse because of the new internet devices that are coming out (Web TV, cell phone browsers, etc.)