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The 3D HLX Process:
Terminology and Rationale
In Draft
This section explains the components and concepts behind 3D HLX.
3D HLX In a Nutshell
The
3D HLX is a prescribed method for constructing web sites in an
effective and efficient manner. The method consists of dividing the
whole process into three phases: design, development, and deployment. Within each phase the work is further divided among three layers of web content: hypertext, layout, and expression.
When followed, the three phases help ensure a minimum of wasted time
and effort. The layers make it possible to divide the work among teams
or team members. Each layer focuses on work that individuals with
different skill sets can excel at. Each phase begins with a preparation
step, followed by a step where the work is divided among the three
layers, and ending with a wrap-up step. The beginning and end steps are
joint activities that people working on any or all layers can
participate in. The middle step in each phase can be divided and
co-ordinated among individuals.
Proper Application of 3D HLX
Use
of the 3D HLX method relies on several factors to be truly effective.
First and foremost the client must understand their role in the process
in relation to the audience and project team. Educating the client
without talking down to them can be tricky. Without understanding the
importance of catering to the audience, most of the 3D HLX method may
seem a waste of time.
Some clients
will not be interested in taking web development seriously, they are
looking for a quick fix. 3D HLX is not a "web site in a box" approach.
The overhead required in planning and hand off makes the method
impractical for such applications. 3D HLX is designed for the creation
of web sites that will be maintained until the need arises to re-design
the site. Even when this methodology is not idea for a given project,
it is certainly possible to take concepts, practices and steps from 3D
HLX out of the greater context and apply them to other types of
projects, including quick fix web sites.
Another
important factor in making 3D HLX work is understanding that every
decision in the process is like taking a variable in an equation and
assigning it a specific value. As each variable is locked in the
flexability remaining in finding a solution that will work is reduced.
The important decisions have to be made first, otherwise the project
team will paint itself into a corner. Similarly there are some
variables that are beyond the project team's control. Audience
expectations are one variable that must be carefuly measured and
understood, but can never be changed. If the project team has a wildly
unrealistic interpretation of what the audience wants, or ignores the
audience alltogether the equation will be off. The result of the
equation in 3D HLX reflects the quality of the product in the eyes of
the audience. The goal is always 100% and the actual result of the
equation depends on how acruately the project team measures the
variables that cannot be changed and balances the variables that can.
Phases
The Design Phase
The
design phase consists of the bulk of planning, information
architecture, and visual design for the site. The leg work performed
during this phase will prevent a lot of wasted time and duplication
later. All aspects of the site are considered: technical, visual,
functional, and many more. At the end of the design phase a through and
detailed proposal for the web site can be produced as a deliverable. In
general, the design phase involves the expertise of information
architects, subject experts, and graphic designers. Technical staff,
maintainers, and audience advocates should also be involved in the
planning.
The Development Phase
The development phase covers all aspects of producing the raw materials to build a web site. This phase actualizes
all of the planning and prepares to take the web site live. Graphic
markups become real HTML, systems are bought or developed and
implemented, and training materials and documentation are prepared.
Development can be longer or shorter than the design phase depending on
the complexity of the site, issues encountered during implementation,
and how many "out of the box" products are used. The development phase
primarily involves the subject experts and techinical staff.
Information architects, graphic designers, maintainers, and audience
advocates should all monitor the implementation.
The Deployment Phase
The
deployment phase takes the web site from release to end of life. The
web site changes hands from the development team to the party
responsible for maintenance. Content is usually generated or migrated
during this phase and training is also common. Deployment is the
longest phase since it continues for the the life of the site. By the
deployment phase most technical staff, graphic designers, and
information architects are moved to a reactive role and are primarily
involved with support and updates. Subject experts and maintainers run
the system in production with occasional intervention from audience
advocates.
Layers
The Hypertext Layer
The Hypertext Layer is the functional
content contained within the site, the information the end-user is
seeking. This layer includes text, meta-data, and markup used to convey
semantic meaning and embedded hyperlinks in the content. The hypertext
layer also includes images and other media that are part of the
content. Markup used to organize the site or control the presentation
of the content is not included in this layer.
The Layout Layer
The
Layout Layer consists of the structural grouping of documents through
the design of the interface, organization of navigational links, and
the arrangement of pages in the file system. This layer uses HTML,
media, and scripts to organize the site in ways meaningful to the the
end-user. Layout asscoates content to URLs and other units of content.
The Expression Layer
The
Expression Layer dictates the visual presentation of the site. This
layer ties together the hypertext and layout to create a coherient
document and helps ensure a consistant appearance among documents in
the site. Expression can even be device dependent, so content is
presented in an optimal format for different media.
Groups
Project Team
This
is the group of individuals working on the site. It may be as few as
one and as many as hundreds. There are an infinate number of ways this
team can be divided and sub-divided. For the purpose of this process
there will be occasional refferences to teams correlating to phases and
layers (such as the Design Team, or the Layout Team), but this does not
imply actual teams should be organized this way.
Client
The
client for a given project is the party in need of a web site. The
client may be the same group that comprises the project team, a related
group, or a completely separate entity. It is important to note that
even though the client has the need for a web site, that site is not
necessarily intended for the client's use on the web.
Audience
This
is the group of people the web site is ultimately for. The web site
should meet some demand placed on the client by the audience. If the
web site is an intranet the audience may very well be the client. For
most internet sites the client and the audience are two separate
groups. It is not uncommon for internet and intranet sites to be paired
such that both are tied to the same content. In this case, the audience
for the intranet side might be the client, but the audience for the
internet side would be some portion of the general population.
Field Terms
Information Architecture
Information
Architecture is the science and art of organizing information in
relatively intuitive, easy to learn, user-centric schemes. It is a very
complicated discipline drawing on a wide variety of fields. Information
Architecture is an offshoot of Library and Information Science, which
is concerned with understanding how people use information systems.
More Information on Information Architecture 
Topology
The
topology of a web site is a conceptual model that describes how various
chunks of information are defined and related. Topologies include the
surface interlinking between documents (hypertext links) and other
meta-data relations such as content intended for the same audience or
about the same product. Any useful relationship between units of
information in the site could be part of the topology.
Content
Content
is information and can be found in the form of text, images, audio,
video, or any combination of media. Individual units of content are
most often combined to form co-herent documents. Similarly, any
document can be considered a collection of content units or chunks. The
granularity of these content chunks is arbitrary from the end-user's
point of view, but may make a big difference in how a web site is
created and maintained.
Content Management
Content
management is a method or system for creating, editing, destroying,
versioning, classifying, and indexing information into useful chunks.
It is often tied to one or more packages of software that make these
tasks easier and coordinate them among multiple people. Content
management may also be a set of practices and procedures, a human work
flow, that layers on top of such software or in place of it.
Web Accessiblity
Content
that can be used by people with diverse physical, mental, and
technological capabilities is accessible. Web Accessiblity is the
practice of making a web site accessible so that users with various
forms of disabilities can use the web site with the aid of assistive
technology. Accessiblity is a requirement for usability.
Usability & Web Usability
Usability
is the study how a product can be best suited to a target audience.
Making products more usable might mean specialzing them for a very
specific niche audience (Specialized Usability) or keeping the design
more general for a broader audience (Broad Usability).
Web
Usability is the application of usability principles to web sites. Web
Usabilty includes both meeting the expectations of people familair with
using the web and making use of the site as easy as possible for less
web-savvy users.
For intranet sites, or internet
sites targeted at a specific audience, specialized usability should be
geared towards that audinence. Internet sites for the general public,
or broad demographics should use broad usability. Both types of sites
should maintain web usability and web accessiblity.
Actualization
Actualization
is the process of taking ideas for a web site and converting them into
web deliverable forms including but not limited to : HTML, Server Side
Scripts, CSS, Images, PDF, Audio, Video, and Flash or other Plug-in
files.
Repurposing & Reuse
Repurposing
is the process of taking materials designed for one medium, such as
print media, and converting them for use in another medium, such as the
web. Repurposing often involves moving content from one software
package to another.
Reuse is the methodology of
using the same content among many different deliverables on one or more
medium. Content designed for reuse has all information for such
transformations embedded in the content itself, little or no editing
should be required if content is truley resuable.
Functional and Non-Functional Content
The
functional content within a site consists of all content that conveys
the information which users of the site are seeking. Content that is
not primarily what users are after, but facilitates getting to the
functional content is considered non-functional. HTML, text, and images
that comprise the navigation of a page are one example of
non-functional content. Other forms of non-functional content include
visual decoration and document meta-data, such as search key words and
date last modified. Content such as copyright information and terms of
use can be considered functional since they are of specific relivence
to the content of the site and are of interest to specific individuals.
Skill Sets
Information Architects
The
information architects in a project team are responsible for ensuring
that the information is presented clearly and is organized in a manner
that is intuitive to the audience and easy to learn. Scalability of the
site, speed of use, and success rates are some of their primary
concerns.
Subject Experts
The
subject experts in a project team are often either writers (often
technical writers) that are heavily involved with a particular field,
or non-writers that have a lot of first hand knowledge of that field.
Their function is to ensure that information is presented accurately,
appropriately, and is kept up-to-date.
Graphic Designers
The
graphic designers focus on making the site meet a certain aesthetic
goal. These project members have to take the contraints of the
information architects, the advice of the subject experts, the desires
of the client, and the expectations of the audience into consideration.
Technical Staff
The
technical staff for a project consists of the programmers,
system-administrators, help desk, and other technology support that
make the production and delivery of the web site possible. Some
technical staff are only involved in the design and development of a
web site. The staff that supports the site after deployment might be
the same or a different staff associated with client.
Maintainers
The
maintainers receive the site during hand-off and keep the site going by
updating the content as needed. Maintainers might be technical writers,
journalist, secretarial assistants, technical staff, or any employee
depending on the type of site. In an ideal situation the maintainers
work with the subject experts, if they are not subject experts
themselves.
Audience Advocates
The audience
advocate is a project member that keeps the needs and expectaions of
the audience, as best as they are understood, in mind during all design
decisions. The site is ultimately made for the audience and cannot not
be built strictly acording to the client's agenda. The audience advocate acts as a bridge between the client, project team, and audience to ensure that the site is designed with the audience in mind, not the client or the project team.
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