Responsive Web Design in Cascade Server, by Chris Cox of BarkleyREI

“Responsive Web Design & Cascade Server”

Hannon Hill User Conference

September 18th, 2012

Who is BarkleyREI?

Full-service interactive agency

Specialize in “information and application rich” projects

Decade of higher education experience (40+clients)

Extensive Cascade Server experience

30+ employees

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Clients

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Clients

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Clients

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Clients

Who is Chapman University?

Located in Orange, California

Founded in 1861

Total enrollment of nearly 7,000 students

7 Schools & Colleges

Students from all 50 states, the U.S. territories, 60+ countries

Heritage of equality and access- admitted men and women and people of color from the beginning

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Responsive Web Design

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What is it?

Why use it?

Process/Approach using RWD

Coding examples

How Cascade Server can help

Responsive Web Design

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Designing and developing a website so that it looks good, and works well, on any size device (desktop, tablet, mobile)

Responsive Web Design- What is it?

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Responsive Web Design- Why use it?

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Pros

Provide an optimal experience for all your site visitors, not just some of them

Once built, easier to maintain than a separate, mobile-only site

Puts you at/near the forefront of current trends; eventually, you could be ‘left behind’ without it as users expectations continue to grow

Responsive Web Design- Why use it?

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Cons

Extra time

Extra $

Responsive Web Design- Why use it?

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When you might want to consider using it:

Need a complete site overhaul anyway

Looking to update your site, e.g. remove Flash- you’re not HTML5 yet

Recently switched to Cascade and haven’t really done much in it yet

If your analytics show noteworthy level/increase in tablet/mobile usage

If you have no real mobile presence already and are looking to build some

Responsive Web Design- Why use it?

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When you might want to consider NOT using it:

You redesigned your desktop site recently and it still has that new car smell

You already have a robust mobile site, and your desktop site looks pretty good on tablets

Your mobile traffic is limited to a particular subgroup of users who all have the same needs, and you want them to have a distinct mobile experience

Responsive Web Design- Why use it?

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Why Chapman ultimately decided to use it:

The Pros outweighed the Cons

Tablet/mobile site visits increasing

Were redesigning the website anyway, did not have a strong mobile presence, and were new to Cascade

Responsive Web Design

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Process/approach using RWD

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Agree on breakpoints

Agree on standards

Desktop → Mobile vs. Mobile → Desktop

‘Content first’ strategy

Extra collaboration

Process/approach using RWD

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Agree on breakpoints

Major Breakpoint – boundary where the display of the site ‘switches’ noticeably

Minor breakpoints:Subtler shifts in between major breakpoints

320 px 768 px

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Need clear standards to build and test against

Can be based on:

Analytics data

Institutional considerations

Agree on standards

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What browsers, and what browser versions, does the site need to work in?

Agree on standards

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Agree on standards

Rollover state in Chrome

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Agree on standards

Rollover state in Chrome

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Agree on standards

Rollover state in Chrome

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Agree on standards

Rollover state in IE8

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What Operating Systems do those browsers need to work in?

Agree on standards

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What devices does it need to work on?

Agree on standards

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What devices does it need to work on?

Agree on standards

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‘Desktop → Mobile’ vs. ‘Mobile → Desktop’

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‘Content first’ strategy

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Extra collaboration between

UX Design Coding Project Management

Process is less linear, more agile

Extra collaboration

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Some coding examples

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HTML is the same for all size browsers

CSS is where 99% of the responsive magic happens

<link href=“/css/style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>

Media Queries

@media only screen and (min-width: 780px)

Some coding examples

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But, media queries don’t work in IE8 or below; used <script src=“/js/respond.js" type="text/javascript"></script> to get RWD to work in them

Used ‘feature detection’ (e.g. to see if touch is enabled), instead of ‘user agent detection’ (e.g. to see what device they’re on)

<script src=“/js/libs/modernizr-2.0.6.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

Some coding examples

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Some ways Cascade Server can help

Some ways Cascade Server can help

Making the complex simple Allow non-technical Content Authors to easily

create and update their content

Custom Data Definitions

Some ways Cascade Server can help

Some ways Cascade Server can help

Some ways Cascade Server can help

Some ways Cascade Server can help

Some ways Cascade Server can help

Some ways Cascade Server can help

Some ways Cascade Server can help

Some ways Cascade Server can help

Some ways Cascade Server can help

Some ways Cascade Server can help

Some ways Cascade Server can help

Some ways Cascade Server can help

Some ways Cascade Server can help

Image size/resizing ramifications

Why a maximum width of 195 pixels?

To ensure they’re mobile compatible

These images are not resized by anything when the page is viewed on tablets or mobile devices

Going wider than 195 could ‘break’ the page layout

Image size/resizing ramifications

Image size/resizing ramifications

Image size/resizing ramifications

Image size/resizing ramifications

Image size/resizing ramifications

Coded as Max-width 100%

Specifying a width and not the height lets the aspect ratio stay intact

Only have to upload 1 image, despite the fact the image is resized at various browser sizes

Image size/resizing ramifications

Image size/resizing ramifications

Image size/resizing ramifications

Image size/resizing ramifications

Add/remove/reorder slidesEach block has a name/placement

Specify image size within the Data Definition

Image size/resizing ramifications

Coded as Max-width 100%

Specifying a width and not the height lets the aspect ratio stay intact

Only have to upload 1 image, despite the fact the image is resized at various browser sizes

Data Definitions for additional elements

Data Definitions for additional elements

Some ways Cascade Server can help

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The good news if you want to go Responsive is that many of the same tools and processes you are probably already using in Cascade can help make your RWD site easy to maintain.

Some ways Cascade Server can help

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Summary

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Tablet/mobile internet usage continuing to increase

RWD provides a better experience for all your site visitors

Once built, an RWD site easier to maintain than separate, desktop-only and mobile-only site

RWD projects take extra time and collaboration

Cascade Server’s features can help you

Summary

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_enhancement

http://www.headscape.co.uk/media/docs/browser-support.pdf

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/summer-reading-issue/

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/responsive-web-design

http://www.abookapart.com/products/responsive-web-design

http://bradfrost.github.com/this-is-responsive/resources.html

http://unstoppablerobotninja.com/

http://www.hannonhill.com/products/demos/william-and-mary-responsive-design-webinar-video.html

Additional Resources

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Questions?

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Chris CoxClient Services Director

412-427-7088ccox@barkleyrei.com

www.barkleyrei.com

Thank you!