Templates for all pages built within the College’s content management system (SiteManager) have been developed which automatically implement Imperial’s visual standards on colour palette, graphics, fonts, margins, page layout.   These templates are designed to be fully responsive, meaning they sense when the page is being viewed on smaller screens, and adapt the layout so that content is optimised for users, regardless of which device they are using.

Four templates are available for all users within SiteManager, made up of three landing page templates and a flexible content page which will contain the bulk of College web content.

Benefits

There are a number of technical, user and economic benefits to using the College’s designs, templates and web infrastructure.  They:

• Create a consistent look and feel for the College web presence, so that users can find what they want easily and do not have to learn new site layouts/navigation for each site
• Make it easier for all organisational units in the College to create and maintain attractive sites, freeing their time to concentrate on generating excellent content and reducing the requirement for external spend to develop and publish websites
• Make it easier to conform to accessibility and legal requirements.
• Reinforce the College identity throughout the entire web presence through graphics, the College logo, colours, fonts and style. The use of a technique called cascading style sheets makes it easy to achieve this design criterion and easy to make changes which can automatically be implemented throughout all sites
• Enable rendition on multiple common browser types, including non-graphics types, with 'graceful degradation' of advanced features which aren't supported by certain browsers.
• Provide free central web hosting facilities, implemented and managed by ICT, providing:
  • High availability
  • A supported content management system, with free in house training and a roadmap of development improvements
  • Full content control by website owners
  • Full file security and back up
  • Operation by ICT specialist staff, including security and some out-of-hours supervision

Conditions of use

Use of the College standard website templates, content management system and designs are compulsory for all Imperial central pages, administrative divisions, Faculties and Departmental sites and are generally a condition of securing an Imperial URL.

An exception policy is in place should you wish to use a non-standard URL, diverge from the standard web templates and designs or host your site outside the primary College web server farm.

If you have suggestions for improvements or additions to the College website designs or templates, please contact your Faculty Web Officer.