I was heavily involved with the development of Howden Park Centre from the initial design right up to the website going live while working for West Lothian Council.
I coded all the CSS from images produced by an in-house designer, with the focus being to maximise search engine friendliness (SEO) as well as expand to fit the widths of widescreen computer monitors.
Due to the requirement of an email sign-up form I decided to use Prototype JavaScript package to aid client side validation. This reduces the number of attempts for a form submittion and helps create a more interactive form.
There was a strong empathsis to use freely available features to maximise social interaction, and engage with anyone using the website. We decided to use AddThis to aid users with bookmarking and sharing, as it provides a free and simple solution and helps towards viral marketing objectives.Due to my experience with advanced forms of XHTML and CSS I was given the primary responsibility of creating the HTML structure.
- Morello MediaSurface (now Alterian CMS) – Java based back-end which interfaces with HTML and JavaScript and provides CMS features.
- JavaScript/API integration – Google Maps API, Google Translation, jQuery Library and HighSlide Image Gallery. Google Analytics integrated.
- CSS – Fully tested and working on all modern browsers, with acceptable degrading where necessary (IE 5+, Firefox 2.0+, WebKit: Safari/Chrome/Konqueror).
- Accessibility – Designed to meet strict Double A W3 WCAG accessibility guidelines (http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/).
- Search Engine Optimised – Fully optimised for enhanced search engine use. CSS design enabled keyword-rich content to appear sooner in the page, while still meeting conventional UI familiarity for visitors. Meta data and page titles are fully customisable.
