Greetings,

It has been a while since we last blogged about the progress of the Fast.Q (full development update to follow shortly) and I would just like this chance to explain one of the tools that we are using to construct the visual aspect of our system, the Common Web Design (CWD) which has been developed here at the University of Lincoln.

This is an HTML5/CSS3 framework which is currently powering many of the projects here at the university, and it aims to enable us as web developers to rapidly develop attractive, cross browser/platform compliant and valid interfaces. In doing so it also creates a sense of unity in look and feel across all university projects.

We have decided to use the CWD as it saves a lot of time implementing our front-end which means we can focus more on the clever stuff that happen behind the scenes.  It also sets to promote the thriving developer community here at the university and communities such as LNCD. There is a real sense of students being at the centre of the university research projects, and using technologies such as the CWD means that we have the support needed to let us engage further with the higher education experience (which we love here on the Fast.Q project).

The most attractive part of the CWD is that we do not have to worry about creating a beautiful interface and then spend an eternity ironing out CSS bugs for older browsers.That is all taken care of by the CWD, we just build our interface and away we go (it also supports mobile device rendering which is a mega bonus).

We will be using v3.0 (Edradour) however speaking to Alex Bilbie (a fellow student and developer of CWD) the new release is imminent which will be interesting to see which new features we could implement for the Fast.Q project.

Stay tuned for updates on the progression of the Fast.Q project

Boaz