review Friday 2 July for visual design

WSTF,

Below is the final draft of information to send to visual designers. I
will plan to send this out today. Please respond ASAP that you are OK to
send it out, with any corrections, or "show stopping" concerns. Thanks!

I tried to incorporate all of the changes that we had general agreement
on. (The "blurb" about WAI is still an open issue. I confirmed with
Charmane that she is comfortable sending the bullets without an
introduction now, with that still open.)

I did make two changes in the page components[1] that we have not
discussed: 
1. took out the suite navigation section - We had an item for suite
navigation. However, if the suite sub-pages are in the hierarchical
navigation (and probably also in the Related page) sections, it seems we
don't need additional suite navigation.
2. added Document information, such as editor acknowledgements name,
sentences, or short paragraph - We have had this section in all the
latest prototypes, but it was missing from the list of  components.

Best,

~ Shawn

[1] http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/UCD/design-space#components


subject: visual design for WAI site redesign

@@,

Thank you for your interest in volunteering to help with the visual
design of the WAI Web site redesign. We have chosen a few designers to
invite to submit designs. Please review the information below and let me
know if you are interested in participating.

BRIEF BACKGROUND

The WAI site redesign project is being conducted in a task force [1] of
the Education and Outreach Working Group [2], which operates under the
W3C Process [3]. We are an international group that works together
part-time (usually via e-mail and a 2-hour teleconference once a week)
to develop consensus-based solutions.

What this means on a practical level is that we have the benefit of a
wide variety of input, and working through issues sometimes takes
several weeks.

The main page for the WAI Web Site Redesign Project is at:
	http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/2003/redesign.html

VISUAL DESIGN PROJECT DESCRIPTION

We are seeking "comps" (preliminary designs for a graphical
presentation). We might ask for revised comps based on feedback from the
working group [1,2]; however, you would not be expected to provide
production ready XHTML and CSS.

There are two basic designs: one for the WAI home page and one for the
content pages. While there is some variation in the components on the
content pages, the WSTF expects that all content pages will use the same
basic design.

Please see the following additional information:
- Common Page Components in WAI Site Design Workspace at 
	http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/UCD/design-space#components
- Visual Design Parameters in WAI Site Design Workspace at 
	http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/UCD/design-space#v-params
- Design Notes in WAI Site Design: Home Page at
	http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/UCD/design-home#design

Navigation Design:
We are currently planning expanding hierarchical navigation, arranged
vertically. A very _rough_ mock-up starts at:
	http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/sketchpad/nav/1.html
and two sample ending pages are at:
	http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/sketchpad/nav/a4.html
	http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/sketchpad/nav/g4.html
Note that in these mock-ups the following paths are live - that is,
those links are clickable - and all the others are not:
	WAI > About WAI > Education and Outreach > Participants
	WAI > Guidelines and Resources > General Resources > Why
Standards Harmonization is Essential 

Also note that since this mock-up we have refined the information
architecture and short names[4], which are in the samples pages listed
below.

For visual design of hierarchical navigation, we are interested in:
- controls for expanding and collapsing
- indicators for end nodes
- indication of current page
- controls for "flyout" for the top three levels
	(W3C home, WAI home, Getting Started, About WAI, Guidelines &
Resources, WAI Groups)
	(fyi, there is nothing in the mocks for this - one idea is an
arrow after the label)

Content for the pages is at:
1. Home Page: 
	www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/UCD/new-home-page
2. Content page with all components:
	www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/sketchpad/sample-all
3. Content page with common components: 
	www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/sketchpad/sample-common
4. Content page with the fewest components:
	www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/sketchpad/sample-few

We would like comps for the home page and at least the content page with
all components (number 2 above). Multiple content pages are provided
above as examples of the range of content; however, we do not need comps
for each one.

While we prefer comps in valid, accessible XHTML and CSS, we understand
that it is often not an effective use of time and effort to make early
comps fully meet standards and work well on multiple configurations.
Therefore, at this stage we will accept comps as graphics files,
preferably PNG, or unpolished XHTML/CSS files. As we are a distributed
group, comps must be electronic (either as e-mail attachments, or
pointing to a URI).

TIMELINE

We expect that the redesign of the technical implementation, and the
content revisions and additions will take a couple of months to
complete. We are preceding with visual design now in order to better
inform the technical and content development... and because we are very
eager to see our re-worked home page and navigation in a nice visual
design!

Thur 8 July 2004: respond if interested in participating
Thur 15 July 2004: send comps

If you would like to participate and cannot provide comps by 15 July,
please let me know right away so we can extend the delivery date. If you
have any comps or rough draft ideas that you would like to send earlier,
the task force would love to see them! Please send all communications
and comps to me and I will forward them to the task force[1].

After the first round of comps, additional visual design work may be
delayed waiting for other factors, including working group review and
usability testing the technical implementation.

IN CONSIDERATION

In consideration for your volunteer effort, we will list your name and
affiliation on a WAI site redesign project page. We will likely add a
list of contributors to http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/2003/redesign; however,
that has not yet been determined.

Additionally, XHTML/CSS comps will be included in the project
documentation - probably in "Sketchpad" currently at
http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/UCD/design-space#sketch - which will be
available publicly on the W3C/WAI Web site. Comps that are graphics
files will need an appropriate text description in order to be included
in the online project documentation.

QUESTIONS and CONTACT

Please feel free to ask for clarifications or additional information.

I will be traveling with uncertain e-mail access the week of July 5th.
Other than that I should be able to respond to email within a day or
two.

Thank you again for offering to help make the WAI Web site an effective
and exemplary tool for advancing Web accessibility.

We look forward to seeing your designs!

Best regards,

~ Shawn

[1] WSTF: http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/2003/wstf
[2] EOWG: http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/
[3] Process, Chapter 6
http://www.w3.org/2004/02/Process-20040205/groups.html
[4] IA http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/UCD/nav

-------------------------------------
Shawn Lawton Henry
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
e-mail: shawn@w3.org
phone: +1.617.253.8788
about: http://www.w3.org/People/Shawn/

Received on Friday, 2 July 2004 11:06:58 UTC