The Web Redesign project is excited to announce the release of the University of Waterloo Web Phasing Plan! The Phasing Plan is intended to enable website maintainers across the university to refresh their sites and adopt new branding within the current Common Look and Feel (CLF) template. By adopting a required common University of Waterloo header, this will assist in orienting website visitors during a time where there will not be a consistent design across campus.

Overview

All website maintainers are expected to include:

• a common University of Waterloo header and
• individual unit wordmark

This will involve a minimal amount of code change and should be completed on all sites campus-wide by March 2011.

Other items that may be changed in the Common Look and Feel template include:

• Usage of the new web colour sets as required for the particular unit/faculty
• Adoption of approved information architecture (IA) (definition) as well as the adoption of content to meet the IA requirements
• Expansion of the template width to make the content area wider (maximum width 960px)
• Language and media assets (e.g., photography) that are consistent with the positioning guide

For those who do not have a completed IA, plans are underway to work with your areas to ensure content readiness (it is still to be determined who will be working with your area on your information architecture). These details will be announced in the new year via web.uwaterloo.ca and UWweb mailing list. Content readiness is critical for eventual migration to the new design in the Content Management System (CMS).

Waterloo Web Colour Sets

The text colours for links and headings have been adjusted for web-use. Use your standard colour for the "contentbar" page headings (see institutional colour palette on colour values page). The "Link colour" should be used for links and other text. Note that ARTS and ENV should not use white on top of their standard colour. Black should be used instead in order to provide enough contrast between the text colour and background. For more details see the Colour Values page.

Wordmarks

***UPDATED (February 26, 2011)***

As part of the website phasing being rolled out to campus websites, site maintainers were asked to adopt a common header which includes a title for every site. In order to meet the demand for website titles and to assist our site maintainers in updating their sites more quickly, we have launched a self-serve website title generator. WatIAM credentials are required to view and download generated titles.

Approved Information Architecture & Content Development Kits

The following units have approved information architecture and content development kits. These content development kits are intended to guide you through your approved information architecture and provide content recommendations. Please note that to access these kits, you will need to authenticate using your WatIAM credentials.

• About Waterloo
• Alumni
• Communications & News
• Creative Services

Faculty X, as well as:

• Applied Health Science
• Arts
• Engineering
• Environment
• Math
• Science
• Future Undergraduates
• Hire Waterloo
• Support Waterloo
• Graduate Admissions

Instructions for Updating your Template

For detailed instructions and code used for updating your Dreamweaver template, see the instructions for implementing the phased header on web.uwaterloo.ca.

Search

The new common header includes a search tool that automatically searches your site only by default. The search will display a message telling the user that they are searching your site only, and will provide them with a link if they would like to search all uWaterloo.

Support & Training

Support will be available if you require assistance in applying the common header to your Dreamweaver template.  Please submit a request to IST via email to request@uwaterloo.ca. 

A public presentation will be held in January 2011 introducing participants to the elements of the phasing plan. This will be advertised on web.uwaterloo.ca and UWweb mailing list. Ongoing training to assist you in content readiness will also be available through a variety of SEW courses that will be offered in the coming months.

Web Operations

For those that are creating a new site, the “WebOps” site will be updated shortly to include a new template that applies all items in the phasing plan to the Common Look and Feel template. Once the new Dreamweaver template is released, the associated style sheets (CSS) that will be available will include the generic institutional colours as well as faculty-specific colours.

Other Resources*

• Best Practices Guide: Reviewing and Revising Site Navigation and Content  [DOCX] [PDF]
• Best Practices Guide: Faculty Site Navigation and Content Recommendations [DOCx] [PDF]
• Best Practices Guide: Departmental Site Navigation and Content Recommendations (coming soon)
• SEW Courses and Web Redesign Bootcamp Materials
• web.uwaterloo.ca

* Requires WatIAM authentication

We look forward to seeing the ongoing rollout and thank you for working with us to advance this phase of the redesign!