This presentation is a case study about the implementation of a 100% XML, dynamic website for a top European automotive manufacturer.

The aim of this presentation is to provide an overview of the decisions involved in planning and implementing such a website.

The initial focus will be the analysis of the original problem faced by the client, which created the need for a new system. An investigation revealed several issues the client wished to resolve. In practice all of them could not be addressed due to time and budget constraints, therefore it was quickly established which of these issues had priority. This allowed the final project requirements to be defined.

The use of XML for this project was not a forgone conclusion at the outset. However, once the project requirements were understood, the decision to use XML became clear. This presentation will examine the choice of architecture for our solution, and the decisions leading to its selection.

Many factors were considered during the design phase, including the target audience and their available technology, as well as issues like download time and the number of concurrent connections to be handled. These and similar considerations encountered during the project will be covered.

With the many XML related products available, an important part of the project was assessing which tools to use. The choice is largely dependent on the approach chosen. The selection criteria used in this solution will be covered.

A look at inner workings of the solution will provide more detail about the decisions behind the DTD design, as well as the coding and design of the website itself. The website design included considerations such as the appearance of the site, the site navigation, and how to handle hyper-linking between the document fragments - all important issues to address, and all issues which could have been approached differently depending on the requirements.

The XML source for the website required creation and existed initially as Word files. Authors unfamiliar with markup usually take time adjusting to using an XML editor. The presentation will cover the decision to re-author the content, and detail how an XML editor was configured and an authoring team trained to allow production of the XML source.

To conclude, there will be a brief summary allowing delegates to decide how successful the project was in terms of meeting the original goals set.

The presentation will include a demonstration of the solution discussed.