File and Directory Naming

While you may be doing your web page development on either a PC or Mac computer platform, your web pages will be accessed from a Linux server.

Misnaming and using capitals and spaces in files, directories and links is the number one cause of broken links and missing images on Internet web pages!

Use the following rules when creating files and directories:

• Only HTML, .gif., and .jpg formats will be accepted. Sites with files containing .zip, .sit, or other formats will NOT be accepted.
• Organize your image files in a separate folder.
• Avoid using any spaces or non-text characters in any file or directory names.
• Use the underscore ( _ ) to separate parts of your filenames (i.e. my_file.htm)
• Your main home page will be named index.html.
• End all of your other web page filenames with .html.

General Page Text Formatting

People visit your Internet site to obtain information about your school or the school district. You want to make it as easy for them as possible to do this. Think of your Internet page as an electronic newspaper, so visualize how your local papers are organized and laid out. To do this, adhere to the following guidelines:

• Bigger text is not always better. Sometimes bigger is simply bigger. Large text on your page normally designates a page banner or headline. Do not fill your whole page with headlines. It loses its impact quickly and limits the amount of information you can place on each page. Large text almost guarantees your viewer will have to scroll through your page to obtain the information they are looking for.
• Do NOT use all capital letters in your sentences! People read by recognition of letter shapes and sizes. Some letters are taller, some extend below the sentence line. Using all capital letters removes these visual recognition clues and makes it harder for your visitors to read your information. Plus, all capital letters take up more space on your screen and force your visitor to scroll up or down to read all of the information. Also, accepted Internet 'netiquette' states when you capitalize all your information, you are shouting at the person. Do you really want to project the image of shouting at your visitor?
• Do not center all of your text on your page. When you center a paragraph of text, the reader has to 'hunt' for the beginning of the next line to start reading again. This makes reading difficult and slow. Center your headlines or banners, but LEFT JUSTIFY text you expect your visitors to read!
• Provide 'white space' on the left and right side of your text. Lines of text extending from screen edge to screen edge makes it extremely difficult for your viewer to read and quickly tires their eyes in the effort to follow the lines of text clear across the screen. Consider using tables to create columns of information to make it even easier for your viewers to read!
• Just because you have a great looking font on your computer does not mean your viewer has that same font on their computer. If you want to use a unique font on your page, convert it into a graphic file and insert it on the page. DO NOT convert a whole page of text into a graphic, though. Limit it to headline banners and major paragraph headings.

Web Page Graphics

Most Internet pages are affectionately known as "eye candy. While these are necessary and add to the overall visual appeal of your pages, the over use of these items quickly turns into frustration for your viewers. Too many or too large of graphics/photos is the number one frustration factor with Internet visitors!

One item which must be understood is the access medium of your viewers and the time it takes for them to download your pages and all of the graphics and photos they contain. The accepted waiting tolerance viewers have is approximately one (1) minute for a page to completely appear on their computer screen. Here is a rule of thumb you can use to judge your page download time.

Modem Speed File Size Download Time
14.4 100 K > 60 seconds
28.8 100 K > 30 seconds
33.6 100 K > 20 seconds

These times are under ideal conditions with a good modem, good line connection and fast server. Do not expect to achieve these approximate times consistently.

A major mistake web developers make is expecting that the visitor will have the page pop up on their screen as fast as it does on the computer they are doing the web page development on. When your are making your web pages and perform a 'preview' of them, you are viewing the files located on your hard drive! You are not accessing them over the Internet. This means they will appear quickly and with no problem. Another facet that misleads web developers is when they access their Internet site through a LAN connection. This makes for a very fast page load time and another unrealistic impression of how fast the web page will appear to the visitor.

Some current web page development software will provide you with an approximate page load time for different speed modems your visitors will be using. Keep your eye on it! Remember, you are developing your pages for visitors outside of your office and your LAN system to view. You must develop your pages to meet their needs and situation, not yours!

Use the following guidelines when developing, using and placing graphics on your pages:

• Keep the total download size of each web page to less than 100,000 (100K) bytes. This includes the HTML file PLUS the file size of each graphic on the page. Some software will provide this to you. If not, use the built in calculator on your computer to add everything up.
• Bigger is not always better. Bigger graphics translate into large file sizes. If you must use a large graphic on a page, make it the only graphic on that page!
• You do not have to use a graphic for each link on a page. Use hyperlinked text and then use the graphic as the headline banner on the target page.
• If you are using digital photographs you have taken, use the accompanying photo processing software that came with your camera. Crop the photograph to show just the person, group or item you want to display. Showing 6 feet of wall space behind someone distracts from the photo and immensely adds to the file size.  
• If you are placing a series of photos on your site, try to break them up into a series of pages. While it may appear convenient to provide 'one-stop-shopping' for people to see your entire staff, the download time for that page will be horrendous! Consider segmenting them into "Our Administrative Staff", "K - 3", "4-6", "Math Department", "English Department", "Coaches" and other such divisions. If you have a parent looking for your student's high school English teacher, would you make them wait for teacher photos from 6 other departments to appear on the screen first? Would you wait?
• Use your graphics software to resize your photos and graphics. Most web page development software provides you an easy way to resize your photo or graphic on a page. (This is also easy to do in straight HTML development!) While this makes it easy for you to format your screen, it DOES NOT change the overall file size for the graphic or photo. For example, you have a photo that is 500 x 350 pixels in size with a file size of 100,000 (100K) bytes. While you may resize it on the page to 25 x 25 pixels, the file size remains at 100K! The download time is still the same no matter what size it may appear as on the screen. If you need to resize a graphic or photo, use your graphics software to do it. Doing it with your software you may turn the 100K file into a 50K file, making it more of an acceptable graphic to serve your visitor.
• Use 'thumbnails' to show your viewers previews of your larger photos. Hyperlink this thumbnail to the original, large photo and provide them the total file size and approximate download time to view it. This way, your viewer can see the photo or graphic and have the choice of taking the time to view the larger version. Users REALLY appreciate this!

Colors

• Watch your background textures as some will obliterate the text. Using a textured or graphical background may appear quick appealing on the screen, it makes it difficult for you to place text on it. A background, which contains a large variety of colors or closely spaced areas of light and dark, will make text 'disappear' as it is printed across the screen. Use the wild colored or textured backgrounds on pages that contain no, or virtually no, text.
• Try to use high contrasting colors so the text is easy to read. Choose your background and text colors carefully. Using a high contrast (not green & red as above) background and text color will make it easy for your viewers to read your messages. Avoid same color text and backgrounds i.e. light blue text on darker blue background as this also makes it hard for viewers to read.
• Use your colors to tie your site together. Once you have chosen a basic set of colors for use on your site, use that same color scheme throughout.  Those colors will help your viewer recognize where they are and gives your site an overall theme people can identify with. A logical choice to start with would be your school colors. This can pose a problem as most school colors are bright and intense (remember green and red?) and don't work very well on the Internet. Consider using just one of those colors (green?) and then using one or two pastel shades of that color for backgrounds, accents, borders, etc. and then a contrasting color for the text.  

Banners

Banners are 'headlines' you can place on your pages to provide the viewer a point of reference. They can tell the viewer whose site the are on ("Albert Elementary School") and also which area of the site ("Our Drama Club"). Use the following guidelines:

• Have one central theme banner on your home page that you use on all your other pages.
• Have a title on each subsequent page identifying the topic of that page.
• If you are going to have both your theme and title banners on the same line on a page, keep the TOTAL width of both graphics under 600 pixels.

Internet Links

One of the biggest assets of the Internet is the ability to link (actually hyperlink) to different pages and web sites. With the fluidity of the Internet, you must have maintenance procedures set in place in order to check the validity of your links. Check the documentation with your web development software, as it may be able to perform this function automatically for you.

Use the following guidelines in establishing links on your web pages:

• Do not link to any web pages or sites which would conflict with the "Inappropriate Content" section earlier in this document. Make sure you visit the site prior to putting a hot link on your page. Don't always rely on what you have heard or read.
• Make sure you have a link to the main AISD (http://www.austinisd.org) home page on your home page. AISD provides a link to your schools or departments on the main site so you need to provide an avenue for people to return to the AISD site.
• Make sure all of the links within your site are valid. Nothing is more unprofessional than you have a link to another page on your own site, and it does not work!
• If you are using graphics for links, always place text links for those same items on the bottom of the page. If your viewer has the graphics display turned off on their browser, they can still navigate your site. Also, text loads first on a page and if you have these text links, people do not have to wait before clicking on one and quickly moving to where they intended to go.
• If your page is more than two screens 'long', provide text links at both the top and bottom of the page. If a visitor has inadvertently arrived on this page by accident, they have a quick way to leave without having to wait for the page to load OR to have to search for exit links throughout the rest of the page.

Site Content Approval

When you place your web pages onto the Internet, you are becoming an official representative of the Austin Independent School District. Because of this, the senior person must approve the overall content. In the schools, this would be the principal. In a department, it would be the department head or their designee. This person must review and approve what you are going to place on your site. It is important that you do not inadvertently place anything on your web pages that may misrepresent the school district or violate district policy.

Campus Webhosting Agreement Form

Each school must have a Campus Webhosting Agreement Form filled out by the school webmaster and approved by the Principal and Web Manager. The contract may be filled out online.

Site Publishing

Placing your web pages on a server is known as "publishing" your site. In order for users to access your school site from the Austin ISD web site, you must be located on the Austin ISD server.

School web sites are currently allotted 400 MB of space for their campus web sites. In order to accommodate all of AISD's school web sites, we must currently limit the size of individual sites. We will likely increase this size in the future.

You can upload your files directly to the server. If you have not yet applied for or received your FTP account, please e-mail the Austin ISD Web Team at webmaster@austinisd.org for account information and uploading instructions.

In order to consider your pages ready for publishing, you must have completed the following:

• Completed the Campus Webhosting Agreement Form.
• Provide name, phone number, school, and email address of the for your content liaison or school webmaster.
• PLEASE DO NOT UPLOAD ANY FILES THAT ARE NOT AN INTEGRAL PART OF YOUR SITE! Space is a valuable commodity on a server and it is important to reserve space for essential files

Schools with access accounts may upload changes and make any modifications to their site as needed. Principals must sign off on the changes prior to upload.