Top Ten Tips For Building Web Sites In The 21st Century

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Top Ten Tips ForBuilding Web Sites In The 21st
Century

• Brian Kelly
• UK Web Focus
• UKOLN
• University of Bath

Email B.Kelly_at_ukoln.ac.uk URL http//www.ukoln.ac.
uk/
UKOLN is supported by
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Who Am I?

• About me
• First started using the Web in January 1993
• Attended first WWW conference in CERN in May 1994
• Now employed as UK Web Focus an adviser on Web
  technologies to the UK Higher and Further
  Education communities
• Based at UKOLN, University of Bath

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1 - HTML Is Dead!

• The Web
• Great success since the mid-1990s
• Exponential growth due to the ease of creating
  Web sites

ltTITLEgtMy first Web pagelt/TITLEgt ltPgtHello
world. ltPgtThis is easy!

• But weve now discovered that
• Maintenance is a bigger issue than creation
• There are other devices besides the PC
• We want automated tools to process and repurpose
  Web resources

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1. HTML Is Dead! (cont.)

• If we use HTML
• We dont have much structure in our resources (we
  have lth1gt but not ltauthorgt or ltborrower-numbergt)
• Its difficult to repurpose information for other
  platforms (PDAs, e-books, digital TV, )
• Its difficult to make use of machine-to-machine
  processes with HTML

• Issues
• Should we be buying HTML authoring tools?
• Should we be providing training in HTML?

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2. XML Is The Future

• XML
• Extensible Markup Language
• Designed to be lightweight and suitable for the
  Web
• Is the future
• Actually XML is the present! The XML foundations
  are mature and widely used

lttitlegtHow The Web Was Bornlt/titlegt ltauthorgtRobert
Cailliault/authorgt ltISBNgt3332lt/ISBN gt
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2. XML Is The Future (cont)

• Associated with XML we have (or will have)

XML Schemas Defining structure of XML docs (ltPRICEgt cannot be negative)
XSLT Language for transforming XML docs
XLink and XPointer Better hyperlinking link to the second paragraph after the 3rd image
XML Signature Digital signatures for XML resources
XML Query Mechanism for querying XML resources
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2. XML Is The Future (cont)

• Conclusions
• We need XML in order to
• Address management and development problems were
  encountering today
• Develop richer, more robust services for tomorrow

• Issues
• How to we kill off HTML?
• How do we make a start with XML?

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3. XHTML - A Migration Strategy

• How do you get to a bright XML future from an
  existing setup based on legacy HTML?
• XHTML
• Is HTML represented in XML
• Looks very similar to HTML except
• ltpgttags must be lowercase ..
• lthr /gt - empty elements must be closed
• ltimg srcfoo.gig width20 .. /gt attributes in
  quotes
• Using XHTML means
• You will get the benefits of XML without a major
  change in working practices

HTML browsers have to check every tag. XML
browsers build a tree structure, which will be
more efficient. A strict XHTML Web site should
be processed more quickly by XML browsers!
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http//www.xhtmlguru.com/links.htm
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3. XHTML (cont)

• XHTML
• Is the latest version of HTML (there will be no
  HTML 5.0)
• Has been developed by W3C to be accessible,
  interoperable, modular, etc.
• Whats the catch?
• Not many XHTML authoring tools available yet
• Migration from HTML to XHTML
• Tools such as HTML-tidy may help - see
  lthttp//www.w3.org/People/Raggett/tidy/gt
• See lthttp//www.xhtml.org/gt

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4. A Useful XML Application RSS

• XML isnt just some vague format which may be
  relevant sometime in the future.
• There are a number of lightweight XML
  applications which you can (and possibly should)
  use today
• RSS
• RDF Site Summary
• A lightweight format for news syndication
• An XML solution you can deploy today - without
  needed to buy new software or (scarce) technical
  expertise

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4. A Useful XML App. RSS

• Why would I want RSS?
• You provide news in your organisation and you
  want to make it available
• On your Web site
• On other Web servers in your organisation
• On third party Web sites (e.g. you are a national
  or regional service and want to provide
  information to your community)
• You want to do this in an automated way - so you
  dont have Merry Christmas news items at Easter
• You have limited budget and technical expertise
  at your disposal

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RSS Example W3C News
The W3C Web site provides news on its home page.
It wants to disseminate this news widely.
Rather than just hoping that people will follow
links to its home page, W3C makes the news
information available in an open, reusable format
called RSS.
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4. Creating RSS
RSS is a very simple format
lttitlegtRoyalty-Free Patent Policylt/titlegt ltlinkgtht
tp//www.w3.org/News/2002item32lt/linkgt ltdescript
iongt26 February 2002 Responding to comments
lt/descriptiongt

• RSSxpress is one example of a (Web-based) tool
  for creating (and viewing) RSS news feeds.
• Other approaches to creation
• From a backend database
• XSLT transformation from XHTML
• HTML-scraping

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4. Viewing RSS

• There are a range of tools for viewing RSS files
• RSSxpress a CGI script developed at UKOLN
• RSSxpress Lite a Javascript solution also from
  UKOLN
• Feedreeder a desktop application

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5. Accessibility Is Important

• Accessibility is important and not just for
  obvious reasons 
• Digital resources can be made accessible to
  people with disabilities in ways that is
  difficult with physical resources
• Digital resources should be made accessible for
  ethical and legal reasons
• An accessible Web site
• Should be more reusable (e.g. by robot software).
• Should be based on universal redesign principles
• Should be more easily deployed on new platforms
  (e.g. PDAs, e-book readers, etc.)
• Should be based on an open, neutral format - XML

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6. Have a URL Naming Policy

• Policies on URLs are needed in order
• to minimise 404 messages when you reorganise
• to allow flexibility - e.g. changing the Web
  server's operating system, CMS technology, etc.
• to make your Web site more easily mirrored and
  preserved

http//www.foo.ac.uk/services/library/resources/p
olicies/getdoc.asp?nameURL_naming

• This example is
• Long(ish)
• Has mixed case and uses an underscore
• Reflects a backend technology (Active Server
  Pages)
• May not be indexed

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7. You Will Need A Browser Policy

• The Web
• Originally designed to overcome application
  dependencies, versioning issues, etc.
• Unfortunately
• Buggy browser software was released and deployed
  widely
• There were errors and inconsistencies in the
  standards and no systematic QA processes
• This means
• It is expensive to provide different versions of
  resources to
• Provide multiple versions of Web sites for
  different browsers
• Test every new feature in every browsers /
  platform combination

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7. You Will Need A Browser Policy

• What can you do
• Do nothing stick with old HTML
• Use all the new features
• Use safe new features, which degrade gracefully
• User-agent negotiation to deliver safe HTML/CSS
  
• Since backwards compatibility failed to arrive
  you will probably need to develop a support
  browser policy
• Target browsers which will get the full effect
• Functionality provided in legacy browsers (is it
  usable, but not elegant, or completely unusable)
• Your policy may also have to describe usability
  for
• Browsers lacking required plugins
• Browsers with features switched off (e.g. no
  JavaScript, for security reasons)

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8. Think Hard About Standards

• There are advantages to the use of open
  standards
• Device and platform independence
• Standards should have benefited from an open
  architectural review process
• But proprietary formats will be very tempting
• They can provide functionality not yet available
  in open standards
• They may provide the features which users request
  (note standards-compliance is unlikely to be
  driven by user needs)
• For you to reflect on
• Who will pay for the migration of a service from
  a proprietary format to an open standards?
• Be warned large software companies, etc. will
  muddy the water with terms such as open and
  user-driven standards

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9. You'll Probably Need A CMS

• How can you
• Deploy XML
• Manage delivery of services to a complex
  environment (browser versions, platforms, etc.
• Deploy new services (e.g. personalisation)
• You will probably need a Content Management
  System (CMS) to develop and manage a professional
  Web site

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10. Have The Open Source Debate

• You'll need to address issues such as
• Open source vs. licensed software
• In-house development vs. outsourcing
• Local vs externally-hosted software.

Note that this can be a very emotive issue for
many IT staff! However you need to have the
debate.