The UC4 Content management System

The UC4 Content Management System has been developed over a number of years in response to requests from non-technical users for simple ways to amend information on their sites in a safe, controlled environment.

Philosophy

The philosophy behind the UC4 Content Management System has been to recognise that the best route to an optimum web site is use web site professionals to design the overall appearance and structure of a site and to provide Content Management Tools so that users with little technical knowledge can easily and cost effectively maintain the site content.

Within the site content we also recognise that some pages may require some variety in the type of copy and images to be included and, in the interests of efficiency and consistency, other pages should be build to a fixed design template, the later being the easiest and most cost effective to maintain.

Website structure and design – The website structure is designed to make the web site intuitive to use and easy for users to navigate and also to ensure that it works well with the internet search engines. The web site design will also determine the formats and styles that can be used in the content management tools to ensure that the user updateable pages conform to the agreed site design.

User Updateable Pages – The content management tools provide all the simple desktop editing features and they allow text to be cut and pasted from Word without damaging the layout of the web pages. The following facilities are supported:

• Input or paste text.
• Format Bold, Italic, Superscript & Subscript
• Format text with predefined web site styles.
• Input special characters (symbols, accented characters, fractions, etc).
• Display text as a bulleted list.
• Display text as a numbered list.
• Insert an image local to this page.
• Insert an image from a library.
• Style images float left/right, with/without borders.
• Insert a URL link within the site and externally.

User Updateable Sets – There are many other updateable items where it isn’t necessary to format the data and in these cases we usually adopt a “fill-in-the-blanks” approach. The user supplies the required data and the web site displays the data on the web site in the agreed format. The tools provided here are very easy to use and very foolproof. The inputs required from the user relate closely to the user application and only web browsing skills are assumed. Typical examples would be:

• Sets of simple pages such as press releases, job vacancies or case studies.
• Listings of one sort or another, for upcoming seminars, exhibitions or new contracts.
• Listings of documents available for download from the web site, under password protection and logging if required.
• Pages of topics and replies relating to message boards or forums.

Through recognising these conflicting requirements of structure, appearance and ease of maintenance, the UC4 content management tools have been built to allow full flexibility in the design and navigation of our web sites whilst also providing the necessary tools to enable non-technical users to use the immediacy of the web as an effective marketing tool.