Technical Specifications

The Museum has been designed and programmed by David Stevens and text written by Bridget Williams, both of whom are curators of Sainsbury’s Archives. Extensive research was carried out to ensure that the layout is easy to use.

The Museum is backwardly compatible to Internet Explorer 4 and Netscape Navigator 4.

The Museum has been designed as a ‘real’ building by Sheila Marshall RIBA. Navigation is through easy-to-follow plans which would actually ‘work’ if the building were constructed. Almost any location in the Museum (and all of the educational galleries) is accessible within three mouse clicks of any other part.

Each page (or display case) within the museum has been designed to fit within a 800x600 screen resolution. This avoids use of the scroll bar, which distracts pupils’ attention from the information on the page.

Page download times are minimised by providing images in small and large versions of jpg format. Initially visible on the page is a smaller Kb file which places the image into its historical context in the gallery and ensures a quick page download. Underneath each image the caption contains information about the size of the larger image. Clicking on this opens a larger version for closer study either online or printed out as a paper resource. Ninety per cent of the site conforms to under 20Kb of information to download. None of the remaining pages exceeds 60Kb.

All classroom activities and worksheets in the Teachers’ Zone are available in both Adobe PDF and MS Word.

History may be the one subject that sparks the imagination of boys who have fallen, in such disturbing numbers, to the back of the class.
The Times, 23 November 1998