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New Branding and CMS

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Introducing New Branding and Content Management Platform

We have recently introduced a new branding that is consistent with Dukehealth.org and DukeMedicine.org web sites. A consistent branding across Duke Medicine provides a consistent user experience across patient care, research and education areas.

We also introduced a new Content Management Platform offering more flexibility, improved content management and customization of key design elements (menus, banners) by the web site owners/content editors.

We are actively migrating key department web sites and will soon contact several of our web site owners to pursue re-branding of the web sites and move to new content management platform. Of course, this is not mandatory but we strongly recommend your web sites to have a fresh look, consistency and move to a better platform to reap long term benefits. Please contact us if you are interested so that we can schedule your web site. 

About Branding

In response to a total lack of cohesion among the hundreds of sites that had proliferated independently over the preceding years, a single, unifying brand was implemented in 2005. 
 
Original Branding 
The goal then, as it is now, was to standardize the navigational structure across sites, provide a consistent user experience, and universally incorporate visual elements that define Duke School of Medicine.  And, in the words of Dr. Dzau,  to “….harness the powerful synergies that exist at Duke such that the whole enterprise becomes much greater than the sum of the individual parts.” 
 
 Second iteration of branding
To further unite the Duke Medicine enterprise, and to provide more flexibility in content management, the brand was revised in 2009 to closer align it with that of DukeHealth.org.   The second iteration simplified page layout by reducing the number of visual elements in the core structure, thereby focusing user attention to site-specific content. Location and styling of the Duke Medicine logo and site name in the masthead, a fixed-width dimension, dropdown, secondary level navigation links in the menu, and contextual right-hand sidebars enhanced usability while maintaining clean design.
 
Current branding
The current brand improves on previous versions by enabling a deeper menu hierarchy and by offering a suite of editable Flash features to highlight site content. Elements that define the academic/research brand are minimal to allow for greater flexibility in customization of design.
(Example of current brand: http://medicine.duke.edu)

 

About Content Management System

Gone are the days when web content management required a unique set of programming skills. Since 2005, sites hosted by DHTS include a built-in content management system (CMS) that allows site owners and editors to change their content from any web browser, anywhere, anytime, and in real time. 
The original, open source platform, called Xoops, provides editors with a familiar set of Word-like tools to perform common tasks, such as editing text, uploading document files, adding images and photos, and making hyperlinks to documents, email and web pages. The current platform, Drupal, goes further by allowing management of navigation menus, as well as of nearly every region of the web page. This expanded capability puts more control over site content in the hands of site owners and editors and allows for more flexibility in design while maintaining the brand.
 
Advantages of the Drupal CMS
  • No programming skills or knowledge of html is required for site management.
  • A wysiwyg edit interface with Word-like icons to perform text editing, formatting and page layout, including spell check, find-and-replace, un-do, plus tools for making hyperlinks and for uploading document files and image files.
  • Edits can be made while on-site or off-site via web browser; no special software programs are required.
  • Navigation menus can be renamed, repositioned by drop-and-drag, and hidden.
  • Pages include a revision history of previous edits and can be hidden while in development. Page URLs are auto generated from an editable field.
  • Right-hand sidebars can be created, positioned relative to others, set to display at the page level and turned on or off.
  • Banner images are editable and can be set to display at the page level
  • Flash features are editable.