In a previous post How to Skin a Wiki, I was adamant that the Wiki design should be basic: This assertion was based on principle, but furthermore on naivety, as I was a novice when it came to Wiki mark-up. I now have some understanding of the potential for more complex design layouts in Confluence.
Is this it?
I got a sense that clients were underwhelmed by the simplicity of a basic Wiki page, and also that there was no way of presenting familiar content in an interesting way. As Confluence allows you to create templates as a starting point for a page, we decided to create some layouts.
When we began training staff to use the Wiki , we demonstrated the templates and I found that they struck a chord. I felt they accentuated the potential of the Wiki , and helped soften the learning curve.
Homepages
There is a basic image with text layout; one that incorporates RSS feeds; and others that enable departments to emphasise specific sections within their site …
Example 1
Example 2
A-Z lists and FAQs
These are pages that are commonly found on department sites. I expect there will be more examples like this that will also be made into templates.
A-Z Document List
FAQs
Macros
I also created a macro to display contact details, which outputs the same vcard mark-up that we use on the corporate site.
How much time do you reckon your team spent doing this?
I ask because it’s probably the best looking confluence I’ve seen!
13 story points
Oh sam. If only I’d known about these lovely pages whilst still in the job! Hope learning services are reading!
Firstly, thanks for compliments, always appreciated since designers have notoriously fragile egos
In terms of timescales: it’s hard to judge as the project has spanned a whole year, but I’ll outline the basic stages from a design point of view:
1. Approx 1.5 weeks mocking up demos in Photoshop, this included ironing out some of the elements of GO that were over-styled, and slowing it down.
2. Actually getting my head around the numerous Confluence style-sheets, and learning how to fudge Wiki Mark-up to accommodate the designed elements, has been ongoing. But I had a full-on initial fortnight of ground work, which gave me a head-start.
3. The actual templates, took a few days as I was pretty confident by that point.
Sam,
Your design looks super sexy. Great job, mate!
Is this implemented in Confluence as a theme? Would you be interested in sharing it with the Confluence community on the Atlassian Plugin Exchange (plugins.atlassian.com)?
Cheers,
Matt Hodges
Product Marketing Specialist – Atlassian
@ConfluenceGuru on Twitter