One of the early goals we set out to accomplish was to develop an intuitive wiki experience catered towards all experience levels while employing cutting edge web design principles. We did not want to just improve on the designs of other wikis. Instead, we built our wiki from the ground up and created something that intuitively houses all of our content for future iGEM teams, as well as provides an engaging educational experience. The wiki you see now is the product of months of design, iteration, and dedication; it's something we as the Miami University iGEM team are remarkably proud to call ours.
A website editor open with the Miami University iGEM home page code on it. Early on, we knew that in order to create a wiki that would meet our expectations, we would need to build the wiki completely from the ground up and catered towards iGEM's MediaWiki server. Through weeks of programming and testing, we were able to successfully meet that goal. Built with a custom Python library, the Miami University 2021 iGEM wiki employs all modern web design principles that you would expect to see on top of being completed catered toward iGEM's MediaWiki environment to be not only fast but accessible.
A core philosophy we had early on with the wiki's design is that above all else, the focus would be the content and the accessibility of that content on as many devices as possible. Given the complexity and wide variety of content that is on the wiki, this was certainly a challenge. To focus on the importance of our content, our wiki is designed to be as responsive and smooth as possible on everything from desktop devices to mobile phones. Through extensive user testing as well as trial and error, we believe that we meet that goal.
Our wiki has a unique navigational menu on the left-hand side that is distinct from other iGEM wikis. Through user experience testing, we determined that people were able to more quickly scan and identify menu items with a vertical left-handed navigational menu.
In a lot of academic papers, searching through references can be a tedious chore. One of the key goals we had with our wiki was to streamline the process of reading and navigating our content. To do this, we developed a dynamic tooltip system to quickly see all information on a particular reference and navigate to that reference website.
For instance, say we wanted to cite the paper Global food demand and the sustainable intensification of agriculture from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It's in-text citation will be the following clickable tooltip: (1)
In addition to the above, all references will be accessible at the bottom a page in the following format:
1. Tilman D, Balzer C, Hill J, Befort BL. 2011. Global food demand and the sustainable intensification of agriculture. PNAS 108:20260–20264. (https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1116437108)
Sometimes academic jargon can be hard to understand even when you are familiar with the content. If you are not familiar with the content, it can be even more difficult. Our wiki aims to be more accessible for people of all experience levels by providing simple and easy to use tooltips for frequently used terms.
For instance, the following term is clickable and provides the description without needing to search for it: Example Term
Navigating a large website with daunting amounts of information can be hard. Don't worry, we thought about that with our wiki! If you do not know where to go once your are finished with a page-- fret not! At the bottom of every page we have included an "Explore Next" section. Depending on what you want, multiple options will be recommended that logically carry forward from the page you left off.
So, when you are ready, start exploring! We hope you enjoy Miami University's first iGEM wiki!
The world depends on high agricultural productivity to provide food and resources to local and global communities. However, global demand for crop production is expected to increase dramatically. Learn how Miami University's CROP could increase the yields of crop plants.
The work done by Miami University's iGEM team was made possible by a team of dedicate and passionate students and advisors from a range of different STEM subject domains! Take a moment to learn more about Miami University's committed team!
The main point of contact on the Miami University iGEM team is the principal investigator Xin Wang. Xin Wang can be inquired below. For additional contact information on the team, please refer to the Team page.
This work was funded and made possible by the National Science Foundation!