ResourcesPhysics WWW

WWW Design Guidelines & Templates

 

Contents

Introduction

This page provides information and templates for use by staff and students within the School of Physics who plan to make their own web pages. There is no requirement to utilise these templates but the School encourages their use for the following reasons:

Improved Legibility

By providing a consistent environment for the reader we hope to improve the clarity of the information presented.

Resource Utilisation

The templates provide a resources for the School. Staff and students who wish to put information on the World Wide Web are encouraged to take advantage of the time savings offered by utilising them.

Professional Appearance

A unified appearance helps convey a professional image for the School of Physics to users of our web site.

Available Templates

To use a template select it from below and save the page as HTML using your browser. Use your editor to modify the page to include your information.

Discussion of Templates

The following is a discussion of certain elements used in the templates.

Colours

Text

The templates use black text on white as studies indicate that dark text on a light background is the most legible.

General Colour Scheme

The two colours blue and white are used in keeping with The University of New South Wales colour schemes. They are defined as follows in RGB components:

White: Red 0, Green 0, Blue 0

Blue: Red 0, Green 51, Blue 102 (00,33,66 in Hexadecimal)

Blue Sample

Fonts

Text

The templates use the sans serif fonts "Arial" or if not available "Helvetica". Research suggests sans serif fonts are more legible at poor resolutions such as occur on computer monitors than serif fonts like "Times Roman". Web Browsers will use the first matched font in a list contained in the "font" tag. "Arial" and "Helvetica" appear quite similar and at least one should be found on most computer systems. If none of the fonts are available on the host the default font will be used with no loss of data.

For an example of how to mark up fonts look at the source HTML of any of the template pages.

Graphic Banners

Large banners made up as graphics use The University of New South Wales official font "Optima".

Graphic Buttons

The buttons use "Arial" as "Optima", being a serif font can be difficult to read in small sizes on a monitor. The buttons along the top of each page use Arial 12 point anti-aliased.

Text Menu

At the bottom of each page is a text menu which is used to navigate around the School of Physics web site. Please include it on your own pages, the links will work from your page without adjustment.

Graphic Elements

Graphic Toolbar - Frames version

The left hand margin of the full frame version has a blue strip with buttons that can be used to navigate around the site. The buttons serve the same purpose as the text menu at the bottom of each page.

The buttons appear automatically for people using the full version so you do not need to include them in your design.

Page Top Arrows and Buttons

Custom arrows and buttons in the style used throughout the site can be supplied on request, please use the Email address at the bottom of the page to get further information.

Icons

Icons are generally normal characters at 40 to 48 point with bevels and shadows added.

Document Titles

The formal HTML title should be in the form:

"Your topic - School of Physics, The University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia"

This follows The University of New South Wales guidelines which are designed to help web search engines correctly identify the page. The titles may appear overly long but they help people find your pages efficiently, maximising exposure to your target audience.

Further Information

Contact the current School of Physics World Wide Web administrator, Gabriel Caus through the following Email:

 

 

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