A contractors obligation (CP/SAP 11.

7)

Designing a LIFE Project website

Factsheet

The internet is an unrivalled source of information and has

become a very important channel for communication. At the
click of a mouse, a gigantic library of information is available
to a wide number of people at any time.
A well designed project website can be a key manage-
ment tool, capable of raising the profile of any LIFE project
and improve the dissemination of LIFE-funded activities to
a wide range of stakeholders. These include experts and
specialists, potential users of the technologies being devel-
oped, policy decision makers at all levels and public funding
authorities, as well as the general public and local citizens.
Recognising the importance of the internet for dissemina-
tion and networking purposes, the European Commission
Posters
made it compulsory for LIFE III beneficiaries to provide a dedicated project website. The beneficiary
shall be under an obligation to create or use an existing website for the dissemination of project results
(Art. 11.7 CP/SAP).

There are four key steps involved in producing a

Key Steps

high quality and effective website for your LIFE
project:
1. Understand the legal requirements;
2. Include a core set of content pages;
with a clearly indicated sub-link (e.g. the website of
the NEMOS project was created within the site of
the beneficiary, the Provincia autonoma di Trento
- http://www.areeprotette.provincia.tn.it/europe/
nemos/index.html)

3. Design a successful layout structure; and Language

4. Generate adequate traffic on the website.
The site should be written in the beneficiarys lan-
guage and also in English if not in its entirety,
then at least an exhaustive summary should be
available in English. Where the project is cross-
1. Understand the legal requirements
border or has partners from other countries, the

Before starting the preparation work for your web-

site, make sure that you are fully aware of all legal
contractual requirements that the website has to
comply with. These obligations should be incorpo-
rated within the early design stages and all mem-
bers of the website production team, including sub
contractors, should be aware of these important
considerations.

Access to the project website

The beneficiary has to create an independent http://www.ecoshoe.info

The ECOFOOT Project website (LIFE02 ENV/E/000241) is
project website with a direct URL (e.g. http://www. available in nine languages, including Arabic and receives more
greendrachma.gr) or within an existing website than 300,000 visits per year.

website should preferably also be in the languages
of these particular countries.
Logos
The LIFE logo must be visibly displayed on the
websites of all LIFE projects. The
websites of LIFE-Nature projects
(funded from 2004 onwards) must
bear both the LIFE and Natura 2000
logos. Furthermore, article 16.6 of the CP/SAP
stipulates that The projects importance in terms
of establishing the Natura 2000 network must be
described.
Reporting
LIFE beneficiaries are obliged to indicate the
address of the project website in all reports to
the Commission, i.e. in the summary and detailed
activity reports, laymans reports, etc. (Art. 11.7
CP/SAP)
2. Include a core set of content pages
Your LIFE project website should contain a core
set of content pages which cover the informa-
tion described below. Beyond this, there is vir-
tually no limit to what can be published on a
project website. Every project has the potential
to create a very informative and attractive web-
site targeting various groups of visitors, rang-
ing from primary school children to established
experts in the project topic.
The following core content pages represent the
minimum requirements for LIFE project web-
sites and these should be communicated to
all members of the website production team,
including sub contractors, as early as possi-
ble during the preparatory process. Additional
advice about preparing the content of LIFE
project websites is also available in other Com-
munication fact sheets. These provide relevant
reference sources during website design stages,
in particular information from the project leaf-
let factsheet, project newsletter factsheet and
press release factsheet.
LIFE Factsheets I Designing a LIFE Project website I p. 
Description of the project
This section should allow an easy understand-
ing of the purpose of your project. It should
describe the project objectives, the main activi-
ties, the background information, the milestones,
the results achieved and expected results, the
involvement of project partners and other par-
ticipants, etc. Where appropriate, the processes
involved in the project activities should be illus-
trated or otherwise schematised using relevant
visual materials.
Update on the progress
This can be presented as an up-to-date summary,
containing the main actions, the milestones and
results illustrated by pictures and documents,
such as progress reports, which can be useful
to assess progress in the projects implementa-
tion. The progress can be further illustrated by
photographs, graphs, charts, schemes and other
pictures.
News
This section should contain regular information on
project related activities and achievements, such as
invitations to workshops, conferences, media pre-
sentations, press releases, project newsletter, etc.
Documents
All of the documents generated by the LIFE project
which can be disseminated to the general public
should be made available on the website in acro-
bat reader or word format. These could include
downloadable versions of the laymans report,
progress reports, leaflets, brochures, posters,
management guidelines, reports and other project
related documents.
Photo gallery
Photographs, when used properly, can signifi-
cantly increase the attractiveness and accessibil-
ity of your websites information. Photo galleries
can contain series of pictures of products, peo-
ple, places, equipment, activities, species, habi-
 LIFE Factsheets I Designing a LIFE Project website I p. 

tats, logos and graphics taken during the projects

implementation. In order to assure easy under-
standing of the photograph, it is recommended to
include short captions.
Links
This section of the website should lead the visitor
to more information about all the topics, people
and organisations involved in the project, as well
as about other related LIFE projects in order to
encourage networking. A link to the LIFE pro-
gramme website is essential, as well as to other
relevant websites of the European Commission
(DG Environment website, Nature and biodiversity
website, etc.)
3. Design a successful layout structure
The challenge faced by every LIFE project website
is the presentation of highly specialised technical
or scientific information in a way that would make
this information accessible to a wide (and often
uninformed) public. On the other hand, the informa-
tion presented on the website should also be able
to satisfy more informed groups of the public, such
as fellow experts in the field or project managers
involved in related LIFE projects. The structure of
your website should ideally respond to this chal-
lenge by presenting the project information at dif-
ferent levels so that everyone is able to easily find
information according to their level of expertise.

Contacts A wide variety of different structures and layouts

have been applied by LIFE projects. The following
This part of the website should provide the full two examples provide an indication of interesting
contact details of the beneficiary and of the people and good practice in website design.
involved in the project management. The readers
should be invited to contact the beneficiary either
directly by sending an e-mail or by filling in an
enquiry form.

Date of the last update

The date of the last update is an indication for the

visitors that your website is alive and continuously
updated or enhanced. This will encourage the visi-
tors to return regularly in order to check for new
information about the progress of the project. http://www.recyclaqua.agropolis.fr
The RECYCLAQUA project website (LIFE03 ENV/F/000257)
includes an educational virtual exploration of the project.

Have you provided the following?

CHECKLIST

Description of the project

Update on the progress
News
Documents
Photo gallery
Links
Contacts
Date of the last update
http://www.life-vuk.hr
The website of the LIFE-Third Countries project website Con-
servation and management of wolves in Croatia (LIFE02 TCY/
CRO/014) is well designed and aesthetically appealing. The infor-
mation about the project is detailed and easy to understand.

Distribution of the information
The information should be distributed in such a way
so as to allow the reader to reach essential infor-
mation with only three clicks of the mouse. Ideally,
every page should provide access to a maximum
of twelve subordinate pages. The body text should
not contain more than five links per page, as this
prompts the reader to jump to another page. The
length of a page should ideally not exceed two A4
sheets when printed out.
Multimedia elements
Besides text and pictures, your website can con-
tain multimedia elements, such as animations,
sound, video, web stream (e.g. a webcam observ-
ing nesting birds or smog clouds). This can sig-
nificantly enhance visitors understanding of the
information presented and the overall attractive-
ness of the project website. However, in order to
http://www.ilm.ee/~uploader/loodus/
?leht=art07engtoonipaevik
The EagleLIFE project (LIFE04 NAT/EE/000072) in Estonia
installed a live webcam in the woods, allowing websurfers to
get an up-close-and-personal look at Tony and Donna, a pair
of black storks and their family.
http://www.tiengemeten.deltanatuur.nl/navigatie/frameset.
asp
The Tiengemeten project website (LIFE04 NAT/NL/000202) has
a webcam where you can watch LIFE Nature restoration work in
progress on the last remaining island in the south-western delta
area of the Netherlands.
LIFE Factsheets I Designing a LIFE Project website I p. 
guarantee the quality of the website, it is recom-
mended to use standard multimedia formats that
can be handled by most computers and include
links to any appropriate download sites for plug-
ins. The multimedia elements should not be too
heavy as this can slow down the time needed to
download the pages. One of the solutions to this
problem is to use thumbnail images that provide
access to a larger multimedia document.
Visual impact
The layout of the website is extremely important
regarding the overall attractiveness and readabil-
ity of the website. Ideally, the layout of your LIFE
website should somehow reflect the issue treated
by the project. This can be achieved by use of
particular background colours, pictures and other
graphic elements such as frames, margins, fonts,
stylised bullet points, etc. Links to LIFE projects
websites can be found via the LIFE project data-
base and these offer a good source of inspiration.
Other good examples of LIFE project websites can
be found in the Communication Tools section of
the LIFE website.
http://www.rakosivipera.hu/main_en.htm
The Meadow viper project (LIFE04 NAT/HU/000116) has a very
simple layout including species-related pictures and colours. Note
the snakes eye in the left upper corner.
4. G
 enerate adequate traffic
4 on the website
Once established and published, the project web-
site is ready to receive visitors. A key task now
involves making sure that your website is widely
known and well visited by the public. This can be
achieved by considering the following tips and
explanations.
 LIFE Factsheets I Designing a LIFE Project website I p. 

Simple address projects website from the home pages of the

Choose a simple and catchy URL which is both
easy to remember and representative of the proj-
ect. This will help to spread the news about your
project.
projects partners and other relevant websites.
Register your website with appropriate portals
(Yahoo, Google, etc.) to fully exploit the internets
search engine technology. You could even con-
sider including information about your ground
breaking research or discovery in Wikipedia, the
biggest multilingual free-content encyclopaedia
on the Internet.

Metadata on the page

http://www.limestone-country.org.uk Unlike an article within a brochure, each page on

The LIMESTONE Country project (LIFE02 NAT/UK 008539) was
awarded first prize in the 2005 EUROSITE Awards as an out-
standing example of communicating site activities to a broad
interest base.
Publicity
Publicise your website widely. Put the address
on all print items, press releases, paper and elec-
tronic correspondence, etc. Introduce a link to the
a website has to be considered as an autonomous
element, with self-supporting information, that can
be understood without any context or introduc-
tion. In order to orientate the reader and make sure
the information is correctly referenced in search
engines, you should think about adding the follow-
ing information (metadata) when editing a page:
page title, authors name, language, date of cre-
ation, description and a number of keywords.

LIFE advice sources
l  or good examples of LIFE
F l  0questions.net pour russir
project websites, visit the Com-
munication Tools section of the
LIFE website.
F or instructions about LIFE
l 
logos, visit the logos page.
See other LIFE communication
l 
Additional advice sources
6 Wikis are websites that anyone
sur le web is a practical web-
site French laguage with free
information and tips for aspiring
webmasters.
Build Your Own Website includes
l 
a good menu of guidance tutori-
Further information
l  etpaint websites provide a
W
facility to create wiki websites.
can edit and these are becom-
ing increasingly popular for
groups / partnerships working
together to build inclusive web-
sites quickly.
Good Practice.com provides an
l 

factsheets. als explaining technical aspects extensive list of advice on many

of web design for beginners, such different website production
as how to use search engines, topics.
essentials of page scripting and A useful Top 10 web design tips
l 

tips about different web forms. are included on this

l 
http://www.lifepattern.it/pages/
home.asp
The Pattern project website (LIFE02
ENV/IT/000017) was judged excel-
lent by the Italian web awards 2004.
Other pages on the site offer a
range of practical advice.
Web Building Info provides a
comprehensive coverage of web
design topics including reviews
of different website software
tools with links to free download
versions.
designers
site, which offers solar-powered
web-hosting. Many EU web
space providers also offer this
eco-service and LIFE projects are
encourage
d to explore the possi-
bility of using renewable energy
sources to help boost sustain-
able consumption benefits.