Design System

Intro

So You Think You Can Build a New Site HUH?

Actually you can! ‘cause Obama says so!

Us at production would like to welcome you to the team.

Building a site is exciting; I think it’s the only exciting thing in this here Treehouse. The pride you’ll have after building your first site is like the one you have when you build your first home from scratch. The personal connection you have with it, all the effort you put in; the cries, the madness, and the days you actually take trying to research how the main message should appear on the site, all the while thinking man I hope they don’t change anything from this site after I’m done! Sorry I’m babbling; but my point is that you should feel a personal connection to every site you build, you’ll probably never talk to the owner of the site, they’ll never know who built the amazing, wonderfully crafted site, but oh well!

When our wonderful Project Manager chooses you to build a site; first get up dance, and shout “Yes! I’ve finally made it!” Nah I’m kidding it was just random.

5PM the program you already know about has two tabs.

When you get a new site build task, most of the time it’ll be called Name of Company – New Site under your ‘My Tasks’ tab, as time goes by and you’re famous, you may see many tasks under this tab.

Viewing your new site build task under the ‘Projects’ Tab will allow you to forget all the overdue and other tasks. Just make sure you choose ‘-just mine-’ to only view your task.

Once you see your task; click on the + sign on the paper looking icon to the left of the task. This will show a drop down of sub tasks, and these are all important for the completion of your site.

By this time, I suggest you go to the café and get yourself a latté, coffee, tea, water, candy, etc…

Click the main task and thoroughly read the information in the info tab, from top to bottom, when you’re done reading the novel; ask questions if you any. You can write them under the ‘Activity’ tab and direct them to the intended person only! And wait… Or as Rick would “Just go talk to them!”

You may click on the other sub tasks and see what’s going on in there also. The important one besides the main task is the Main Message design task, because you’ll find out what template you’ll be using and the main message on the Home Page of your site is found in this task. Since you’ve probably received A+ Training from our “Leader” I will not bother you with the design part.

Some tips though in case you’ve forgotten: http://devtest11.basementsite.com/demo/style-guide.html This is your cheat sheet, it has everything! Thank you John!

http://devtest11.basementsite.com/ This is where some new contents are found for new sites.

http://devtest11.basementsite.com/demo.html

  • On the first page, you’ll see bunch of Content Templates, it think you get it.
  • Click through the sub links, its self explanatory or feel free talk to one of your team member if you’re confused about something.

New sites are very easy, because there’s nothing to move over from another site. The content in the Info Tab is usually loose. Which is why I have nothing much to say here.

Site Takeover!

We’ve successfully managed to seduce a dealer that already has site, and now we must takeover there existing site.

  • I would advise that you follow the steps in the ‘Info’ tab
    • Make sure not skip any! The On-boarder has taken his or her time to write these steps for you, use it to your advantage, plus they all know karate, so don’t get go there…
  • Be on the lookout of contents that we’re bringing over from the old site.
    • The On-boarder will list them on the Info Tab, and also let you know whether images, videos, and others things on the page are included.
      • If you’re not sure, just ask them, they are nice people.
  • The design of the site is all on you! The dealer may request that their site look like the existing site, or that the colors on the site look like their brand color. But the On-boarder will have these requests in the ‘Info’ tab.

Site build reminder

Ok I know I said that I wasn’t going to bother with the design part, true! But just a reminder about crucial things you can’t forget:

  • The site needs a Favicon
  • Every image on the site needs and ALT Tag.
  • The main message needs both the ALT tag and Title tag.
  • Optimize every image that you yourself will be adding to site, I say this because ‘Core image are already optimized’
  • Size your image correctly, Ex. you can’t have a logo sized originally to 600px and try to reduce it manually (width & height) or with CSS.
  • In the end you’re responsible for the site you’ve built! You need to thoroughly check the site and fix or flag anything that is not right.
  • Check the links to the images moved over from the old site, it might just have been copied over. You’ll need to upload the image and updated the link.

Site completion! The site is complete and approved. It’s time to turn the site live!

Follow our well written Site Flipping Checklist