Purpose

This website has two very different audiences: guests and members. Some guests are primarily interested in locating boating related information and classes in the Seattle area while others want to find out more about the Auxiliary. The goal for guests is to allow them to easily and quickly locate the information they want while presenting them with a positive view of the Auxiliary. Guests are encouraged to view the members sections of the website and to contact a local area Flotilla to become a member.

While many members are also interested in boating information for the Seattle area, they desire details on an extensive range of subjects that are required for them to do their jobs. Although there is an immense amount of useful websites on the internet, it is difficult to locate many of the sites. Even when an appropriate site is found, locating the specific area of interest can be extremely challenging and, ultimately, frustrating.

So, for members a major goal of this website is to organize Auxiliary websites and pages on the internet into a reasonable number of categories that are useful and intuitive. This was done by reviewing every Auxiliary website on the internet to determine what was useful, where the information was located and what categories made the most sense. A second goal for members is to provide them with current information related to Auxiliary functions that are specific to the local area.

Site Organization

Banner

The banner across the top of the page is a graphic image. Moving the mouse over certain areas of the banner will change the pointer to a hand, indicating a link. These areas are:

• DHS Main Website Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Logo
• National Auxiliary Website U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Text
• Home Page of this Website Division 2 Text
• Auxiliary D13 Website District 13 Text
• National Coast Guard Website Coast Guard Slash

Left Side Menu

The menu down the left side consists of links to the most popular or most important pages for our members. Pages that change frequently, like newsletters and calendars, are always included in this section. The page of most interest is at the top of the menu, generally progressing downward. However, the main page to outside links is traditionally at the bottom. These menu buttons are larger than the top menu buttons, so this is generally the first place visitors to the site will look.

Top Menu

The menu directly under the banner and above the body of the main text contains links to pages that public visitors are most interested in viewing. The order of interest is from left to right, with the most interesting page listed on the left. Since we would like to interest visitors in the Auxiliary, the page containing contacts and information about the organization is listed first. To the right of the public menu items are relatively static member pages that are viewed less often than the pages listed in the left side menu.

Visual Design

• Page width - Limited to 772 pixels in order to accommodate a wide range of monitors and display settings without requiring site visitors to scroll right and left.
• Page Length - With the exception of this documentation page, all pages are kept reasonably short to insure that visitors do not have to scroll down several pages to locate the information they are seeking.
• Page Alignment - Pages are centered to make the site more symmetrical and visually appealing.
• Images - Used very sparingly to insure that visitors using dial-up internet connections do not have to endure long waits for pages to load.
• Text Background - A white background without an image is used in the body of the pages to insure that all text is easily readable.
• Text Line Height - White space (130%) between lines of text makes paragraphs easier to read.

Styles

The colors used for all text links are:

• Normal - Light Blue
• Hover - Dark Green (indicates link that mouse is currently over)
• Visited - Dark Blue (indicates the link was recently clicked on)

The menu buttons are links and use the standard link colors for text. In addition, they use grays with borders to make them appear as if they were graphic buttons. The standard background colors for the menu buttons are:

• Normal - Medium Gray
• Hover - Very Light Gray (appears as if the button is being pushed down)
• Visited - Medium Gray (The Dark Blue text indicates the link has been visited recently.)

The report buttons are links, but do not have any text on them. The standard background colors for the report buttons are:

• Normal - Medium Gray
• Hover - Dark Green (appears as if the button is being pushed down)
• Visited - Dark Gray

All other text in the main body is black and the text in the footer is medium gray.