A quick primer into best practices, details, and direction for building a research-oriented website.

1. All About Building a
Research Website
Eric Sembrat

2. Eric Scott Sembrat
Web Manager @ Georgia Tech
College of Engineering - Dean’s Office
twitter: @esembrat
web: webbeh.com

3. First, Your
Assignment

5. Bad
Websites

7. Incredibly dated
design/background
pattern.
(when was this page
last updated? a lot
sooner than you’d
think.)

8. Non-standard menu
placement and
organization.

10. Georgia Tech logo and
site graphic non-
compliant, out of date.

11. Be wary of usage of
Buzz, Georgia Tech
protected assets.

13. Custom logos can
sometimes look worse
than not having one.

14. Non-standard
appearance of menus
may throw off end-
users.

15. Make sure your
website text appeals to
each of your
anticipated visitor
role(s).

16. Make sure your
website text appeals to
each of your
anticipated visitor
role(s).

18. Don’t use fish as menu
hovers.

19. Sometimes themed
websites can detract
from the
professionalism of a
website.

20. Key Takeaways
Using outdated web styling gives the appearance
of a stale website.
Be wary of customizing ‘official’ GT logos,
trademarks.
Using very technical descriptions and text may
detract intended audiences (read: public, media,
graduate students).

21. Good
Websites

33. Writing for
the Web

34. Is Your Website Public?
If so, you must adhere to 508 Accessibility
Requirements for your website, content, images,
and documents.
See: http://www.gatech.edu/accessibility/

35. Accessibility Requirements
At a minimum, you’ll need to have:
• ‘Alt text’ on each and every non-descriptive
image describing it.
• Meaningful link text (not click here).
• Responsible layout and content usage:
• Not using tables for layouts
• Using header text appropriately
• Using contrasting colors for background/
text.

36. Consider Your Audience(s)
When creating pages, updating content, or
building a website, consider who might be
visiting your website.
Roles include:
• General Public.
• Prospective Graduate Students.
• Prospective Faculty.
• Current Students, Faculty.
• Media and Communications.
Build your websites to meet these end-users.

37. Consider Your Assets
Remember that videos, images on your website
are critical to the visual identity as well as
potential articles and news.
Photos and images should be available in large
quality (>1200pixels) as needed.
Videos should be available through services
which allow captioning.

38. Consider Your Pages
Content is king.
Consider organizing content into individual menu
items based on roles or usage.
Examples being Research, Publications, People,
News, Events, Contact Information.
What kinds of content are you looking for on a
website?

39. What can GT
do for you?

40. Why Reinvent the Wheel?
Georgia Tech has up-to-date resources, assets,
and templates that make digital web
communication and websites easy to build!

41. What is a CMS?
Georgia Tech uses content management
systems for most websites on-campus.

42. Content Management Systems
Drupal
• See: https://drupal.gatech.edu/
WordPress
• See: http://pwp.gatech.edu/

43. Drupal
The foundational CMS on campus.
Very flexible for custom websites with lots of
personalization, but very high technical
requirements.

44. WordPress
The service-oriented CMS on campus.
Very easy to use (think: plug and play) but very
limited customization.

45. Your
Activity

46. Professional Web Presence
Use the on-campus WordPress installation to
create a website for your research and work.
• http://pwp.gatech.edu/

47. Professional Web Presence
Request a website for your own personal needs.
• Use your GT account name as the site name
and URL if desired.
Test with WordPress, a content management
system for websites on campus, with the goal of
building what you would think is an ideal website
for a personal need.
Show and tell what you built and why.