The NCC Web Site

[Carol Orange <]

We'd like to take a minute to respond to the comments posted
in the last few days about the new Web site. Some of the comments
were not sent to the ripe-list, only to one or two people here.

First of all, we want to thank those of you who have sent in comments
for your interest in the site. We are sorry for the teething troubles
and appreciative of your patience. 

1. Access

Although we chose to use frames in the browsers that support them,
the web site was designed from the outset to be accessible by simple 
browsers such as Lynx. Unfortunately, the  automatic selection had 
a flaw that prevented access by browsers which did not allow one to 
load another page directly.

For those of you who could not reach the site because there was no
support for no-frame browsers during the weekend, you might like to
know that immediately following the launch, we were fair and 
impartial :-). Our web site was inaccessible regardless of your browser. 

At this point, the web site should be accessible with whatever
browser you are using.  Certainly there was never an intention to 
prevent access to the site with non-Netscape browsers. If at any 
point, you find you can't access our web site with an arbitrary 
browser, please let us know. It is most definitely not by design.


2. Content 

We are glad to hear that most people find the information available 
on the web site to be of use. We hope to keep it that way and hope 
that you won't hesitate to inform us when new information would be 
useful.

2.1 List of documents 
We've been asked to put titles next to the list of ripe-xxx document
names. 

We've also been asked to list the documents in a table, so the entire
list can be viewed without scrolling.

Both of these views will be supported in the near future.

2.2 RFC Access
There's been a suggestion that the RFCs should be accessible from our
web site.  While the RFC's are still accessible via our ftp server, 
we've not put pointers to them on our web site. This should not be 
difficult and we will be happy to do so if there is sufficient interest. 
Please send a note to webmaster@localhost if this service would be of
use to you.


3. Frames/No Frames Controversy

That is the question. 

The decision to incorporate the use of frames in the design of the 
RIPE NCC web site was based on carefully weighted user interface design 
principles. It was influenced by the response to the survey posted on 
our old web site in which the vast majority of respondents indicated 
that they would happily wait a little longer if it would result in 
a more easily navigated web site. Except for the trouble with moving
between frames which works differently than moving between pages, 
we believed that using frames would enable easy navigation. 

Another principle applied throughout the design of the site was "keep 
it simple". The graphics are minimal and consistent throughout. This 
was so the web page would load quickly. The graphics that appear beyond 
the home page are the same as those on the home page, and are therefore 
only loaded when the site is first accessed. We also consider it 
essential that important information stand out rather than that our 
site be "glossy".

Because the discussions on the ripe list in the last couple of days
indicate that a number of people who access the site would greatly 
appreciate a more minimal design (e.g. the text only version), we will 
take steps to ease access to the no-frames version. In addition to 
a (to-be-included) no-frames button on the menubar of the site, the 
no-frames version of the site is now also available in:

http://www.ripe.net/noframes.html

This is for those who want the no-frames version when the automatic 
selection process would give them the framed version by default.

As stated by Daniel in an earlier message:

There were basically three choices we could make:

1) Determine the browser's capabilities and choose a version accordingly.
2) Always show a selection page for the user before showing the home page.
3) Always show the non-fancy home page with a selection button to
   choose the fancy version.

In the coming months we will examine access statistics to find out how
much different pages are accessed. In general, the results will be used 
to determine what modifications might make the site more useful. If the 
no-frames version of the home page is sufficiently popular, we will 
make it the default, and make the framed version accessible via a 
button on the home page and another URL. 

Anyone with views on this subject is encouraged to send them to 
webmaster@localhost. They will be collected and considered together
with the statistics in the next couple of months.

4. Navigating in Frames

As noted in other mails, the right mouse button can be used to move 
back in frames. As also noted, this does not work 100% of the time.

5. The Documents 

Currently we are still smoothing out some minor formatting problems 
in the document pages. Moreover, it seems the Reference section has
been stripped off ripe-136. Both problems are being pursued at this 
time.


That's it for now. Please keep us informed of any problems you have.

Kind regards,

Carol Orange - RIPE NCC Web Site Coordinator
Lee Wilmot - RIPE NCC Web Master