Project

Oxford University Press

General & technical consultancy

Project team web site
To assist the project team, we set up restricted-access mailing lists, and a project web site. We set up the web site which was maintained by OUP. 1997

Suggested features for OED Online
Following the research and development of a functional prototype of OED Online, we documented a list of 53 ideas and technical issues to consider in the online service. These included a Word of the Day on the promotional site and graphical representations of dictionary statistics. 1997

Mail-handling system
Limitless developed a web-based mail-handling system for the OED Online project team. The team consisted of people from several departments and different countries. The mail management system allowed messages to be archived so that they could be listed, searched and displayed using a web browser. We wrote all the Perl scripts and we designed the front-end. 1998

Information presentation
We were asked to consider the design of the date chart - OED entries include quotations illustrating usage over time. The earliest quotation and spread of quotations is of interest to scholars.

There was a tabular representation of the dates in the original OED 2 online prototype. We considered alternative representations and went for a bar-chart version. We moved the "axis", simplified the labels and bottom-aligned the quotation years so that they gave the appearance of a bar-chart.

Although OUP later tried variations of the new date chart, OED Online uses our redesigned date chart. 1999

Focus group web site
An OED Online demo (functional prototype) was taken to various universities across in the USA in a series of focus group workshops. OUP asked for a web site for the workshop attendees. We designed and built the web site for use by attendees of the focus groups.

The workshop site included an LML bulletin board system (BBS) and mail-handling system. As with the project team site, we designed the front-end of these by creating a set of page templates and graphics, adopting a similar style as the project team site. 1997

Project team BBS
Limitless had developed a customisable system for building bulletin boards. We designed the front-end of the BBS by designing a set of page templates with graphics. 1998

Software architecture
We wrote a white paper discussing software architectural issues in building a scalable online service. 1997

Requirements reviews
We reviewed the user-interface in the requirements document for OED Online. We also reviewed the requirements document for the redeveloped CD-ROM version of OED 2. 1999

Hosting guidance
We provided guidance on the issues surrounding hosting services. 1998

ITT review
We reviewed the draft Invitation to Tender (ITT) to be sent out to companies to develop and host OED Online. We were also asked to review the graphic design to be included as screenshots in the ITT document. 1998

Proposal reviews
We reviewed the proposals sent to OUP by the potential site developers. 1999

"Browser-safe" palette
We provided advice and recommendations on the use of the "browser-safe" palette - we were also asked to check and adjust images from the design company. 1999

Beta reviews
We reviewed the user-interfaces of the first and second OED Online beta versions. 2000

Server logs
We ran a half-day session at OUP on web site logs, the problems with log analysers and how to interpret site stats. 2000

OED Online was launched 14 March 2000.

Theme IdeaTorrent

Scott Morrison Photography web site

19 of 43 go to case studies

Web site design

Berry Bros. & Rudd web site