Just think... hundreds of Web sites all relating to one organization- one brand. However, the content authors are many and never once tied together. Thus, the look and feel of many of these sites are never consistent, branded or even speaking the same language (taxonomy).
This was an issue with Johns Hopkins Medicine... and now with the advent of the ThinCrust (named for both the noticeably small footprint across the top of any Web page and for its feel-good contribution to society- kind of like pizza) we figured out how to connect all of the independent Web sites that bear the Johns Hopkins name.
How does it work? With one line of JavaScript code that includes a .js include, we can now control the presentation of the ThinCrust from our site centrally. No handing over images and html. The Host Web site manager simply inserts the one line of code anywhere in the 'head' or 'body' tags and the code will do the rest.
The display allows the user to Explore more sites and navigates via 4 column, CSS menu that includes the Google Search Appliance application. The search will not only search all Hopkins sites, but will also detect the site the ThinCrust is on and search that site exclusively.
The menu options highlight when moused over and will open any Web site referenced- however the selections are organized by intent- Patient Care, Education and Research- where the user can 'learn more', as the fourth column allows the user to 'take action'.
The ThinCrust has been embedded on this blog as an example of how easy it was to implement and use.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
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