Ngā Toi Online
Website: tki.org.nz (site has since been redesigned) - view screenshot
Size: 250+ pages
Government status: Government Ministry
My professional status: contractor at CWA New Media
Website client: Ministry of Education
Dates: September 2004
Categories: Front-end developer, Govt web standards tester, Writing for the web, Content-loader, CSS-based layout, e-govt/WCAG compliance, eZ Publish, Government websites, Large sites
Brief: to make extensive alterations (mostly in te reo) to the text within this large subsite which was part of CWA's Te Kete Ipurangi portal website. Ngā Toi Online had two versions - English and Māori - as did most of TKI. However, changes had been made which left the two versions inconsistent with each other. This project sought to restore both parts of the site to a bilingual mirror of each other.
My responsibilities included:
- Making careful alterations to the text (XHTML) on virtually every page of this large site, following a paper edit by the site editors
- Ensuring that these alterations complied with CWA's strict XHTML/XML template for TKI
- Checking and double-checking these alterations to ensure that all macrons were correctly applied to the te reo sections.
A very slow and painstaking project. This kind of content-only editing is usually very quick and straightforward. However, the inclusion of macrons in the XHTML means that the code can no longer easily be speed-read. The work was made doubly interesting for me as a non-Māori speaker by the fact that most of the site is in te reo. As I am a perfectionist who loves detail, I loved this project.