Please note: This site has been replaced with a newer version. It remains here for historical reference only.

Home

OUICE is a front-end website frame work for Open University websites. It has been developed to enable rapid deveopment of new websites and is in itself an example of best practice in for web accessibility, usability, search engine optimisation (seo), branding (colour, typography, layout). It has been developed as a collaboration between Online and Student Services. The first point of contact for any queries is Guy Carberry (g.d.carberry | 54576).

Highlights

  • Showcase — What we've built using OUICE.
  • Create a site — build your first OUICE website.
  • Anatomy of OUICE — The HTML that makes it all work.
  • Files — The files you need to link to in the <head> of your page.
  • Styles — A range of HTML and CSS patterns that result in OU furniture.
  • Layouts — Grid systems, easily applied.
  • Colours — The official OU colour clusters.
  • Example content page — Bringing it all together.

On the todo list

  1. Finalise the default font-family list -- optimise for OSX, Vista, XP, Ubuntu
  2. Complete colour schemes
  3. Print style sheet
  4. Clean up the screen style sheet
  5. Update jQuery library to current version
  6. Add OUICE UI behaviour enhancements
  7. Create a mobile phone OUICE template
  8. Add more graphical UI bulletts, lines, bgs and buttons
  9. Recruit volunteers to develop the Drupal, Wordpress and MediaWiki templates further
  10. Decide if to develop for SMF or not.
  11. Fine tune the CSS for the standard OU header and footer.

Change log

Date What changed Why
23/06/09 OUICE core template. Swapped in new header and footer. These are the new standard elements.

Are you using OUICE?

OUICE is not yet production ready. You might say it's in BETA. But that doesn't stop you using it. But please let us know if you are so we can make sure we don't break something in your design as this thing evolves.

Sites that use OUICE

  1. Services for Disabled Students
  2. Web standards (this site)
  3. Web standards wiki

See more in the showcase.

Upcoming sites

  1. Student Support Review
  2. StudentHome
  3. Getting started with the OU (induction)
  4. Friends and Family
  5. Student Complaints and Appeals
  6. Snowball

Want to contribute?

OU colleagues can contribute to the development of OUICE. Please refer to the Wiki to find out how.

Any questions?

Submit any questions to the OU web developers group.

Roadmap

  1. December 2008
    1. v1.0 Core file structure available
    2. v1.0 Core HTML patterns available
    3. v1.0 Core Screen CSS rules available
    4. v1.0 Core Print CSS rules available
    5. v1.0 Core gui images available
    6. v1.0 Downloadable package available
    7. v1.0 Dreamweaver template available
    8. v1.0 Page templates available (home, gallery, content)
  2. March June 2009
    1. v1.0 MediaWiki theme available
    2. v1.0 Wordpress theme available
    3. v0.1 Drupal theme available
    4. v1.0 Page templates available (landing, product, search results)
  3. June September 2009
    1. v1.0 Alternative colour schemes available
    2. v1.0 Javascript gui enhancements available
    3. v1.1 Core Screen CSS rules available