Design Standards

Content area

• Content area width - required width of 750px to ensure all tools are displayed correctly
• Design needs to work regardless of the height of the content area
• Content may be larger than specified in your design depending on the content the user adds to the page, or depending on the content added to various tools

Menu / Navigation

All Dynamic Menus

• Menu items can't be different colours
• Mouse over transitions should only be either text colour and/or button background colour changes
• Submenus and sub-submenus all need to look the same
• Limit of up to 3 tiers of navigation (usability recommendation)
• Fonts used must be standard HTML fonts

Top Menu

• The menu must not become wider than the website itself
• Suggested menu location is the top of the website. Usability standards suggest not placing main navigation in the bottom toward the bottom of the website
• Dropdown menu’s can be split into columns and can also contain headings
• Example website http://www.thewebplayground.com.au/

Side Menu

• Side menu is recommended to be on the left hand side of the design
• Side menu cannot contain headings and columns

Submenus

• Submenus can be a set width or variable. Variable width will reduce or extend to the width of the longest menu item in that menu
• All submenus will be the same colour and have the same colour transitions

Supplied Design Format

• Needs to be created in Photoshop CS2, CS3 or higher and be saved with "Maximum compatibility" select upon saving
• Needs to retain layers
• Needs to use RGB colour space only
• Background images or design must not be cropped to assist website construction or if alterations needs to be made
• Images must be masked appropriately and not cropped incase alterations or touch-ups need to be made
• "Smart Objects" should be used when importing multi colour EPS, PDF or AI files into Photoshop to retain vector quality
• Single colour logos/objects should be imported (pasted) as shapes rather than pixels to help retain vector quality
• Layers should be labeled correctly and be grouped where appropriate
• Needs to be designed to be viewed at 100% (Browser Zoom)
• The body content area must be either 790px or 970px wide
• All text used in design must be created into shapes
• All text used in the content area must remain as editable text and have the no anti-aliasing applied (this makes the preview more accurate)
• The fonts used in the editable text areas, including menus, must be standard web fonts to ensure maximum compatibility