Research raises requirements of its own
An institute site is rarely a marketing page. It carries publication lists, staff profiles, project pages and course listings, often in two languages, maintained by people for whom the website is not the main job.
Three things follow that we settle early: what is the permission structure? Which content belongs in the CMS and which comes from specialist systems? And how do you keep the editing interface simple enough to be usable without training? For that last point, TSconfig is the most effective tool: what nobody should use does not belong in the list in the first place.
Accessibility is mandatory here, not optional
BITV 2.0 applies to publicly funded institutions. We implement accessibility in the sitepackage, audit what exists with tools and by hand, and write an accessibility statement that names known limitations rather than claiming completeness.
The part most often underestimated is the editorial one: heading levels, alternative texts, link text that says something. Technology alone does not hold the state.
Two cities, one area
Heidelberg and Mannheim are around 25 kilometres apart. To us that is one region: if we come for a kick-off, a second meeting can be added the same day. Our office stays in Stuttgart-Feuerbach, a good hour away.
Many editorial teams, one site
An institute site is rarely maintained by one person. Departments, working groups, administration: each has its own branch, and none should end up in anybody else’s by accident.
TYPO3 solves that with permissions per area of the site, supplemented by restrictions on the editing interface. The most effective tool there is taking things away: what nobody in an area should use does not belong in the selection list at all. How that is configured is set out in the glossary under TSconfig.
Where things additionally have to be read by somebody else, with press texts or legally sensitive content, workspaces come into consideration. We only recommend them where an approval process already exists; otherwise they are effort with nothing in return.
Bilingual and accessible at the same time
Research sites are usually German and English, and BITV 2.0 applies to publicly funded institutions. The two together have a consequence that is often overlooked: accessibility applies per language version.
Alternative texts, labels and error messages are created afresh in each language. An accessible German version says nothing about the English one. Think of the two together and you save doing the work twice, in the sitepackage as well as in the training. The details are under multilingual sites and BFSG.