UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON SCHOOL OF NURSING

SON Web Policy

SON Home > Web Policy > Web Best Practices
Web Policy
Overview
Responsibilities
Policies
Best Practices
Definitions
Forms

Web Best Practices

Design • Accessibility • QA • Content • Marketing

As your first stop, check out the University's Web Best Practices site.

The following web practices are based on industry standards and SON-specific needs. Web owners are responsible for implementing these practices on their web sites—please contact TIER for guidance and recommendations specific for your site.

Design

Design • Accessibility • QA • Content • Marketing

  1. Browsers: Sites should be viewable and functional in the most commonly used browsers (usually the latest non-beta versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox). For testing visual design in browsers other than IE and FF, we recommend using Browser Shots.
     
  2. Printing: All pages should have the ability to provide content in printer-friendly ways (this can easily be done with a print-specific CSS).
     
  3. Branding: The University is in the process of revising branding, and when complete it is expected that all UW web sites will need to include certain elements (along with links to the UW web site) in their design, and be consistent with use of official logos, colors, and fonts. Additional information on these requirements is available on the UW Marketing Roundtable site.
     
    The School of Nursing's official branding should also be represented in some way on all SON web sites (along with links to the SON web site), using official logos, colors, and fonts.
     
  4. Footers: Every web page should have a footer that provides an email contact for the content owner and/or web editor, along with a date the content was last reviewed.
     
  5. Colors: Keep background colors and design elements neutral or somewhat muted, and provide high contrast for text or other key elements.
     
  6. Templates: Web templates that meet SON web policy are available free of charge from TIER. Custom development is also available—contact TIER to discuss options based on your budget.

 

Accessibility

Design • Accessibility • QA • Content • Marketing

If the concepts in this section are unfamiliar to site content owners or web editors, we strongly suggest taking the training available from UW on the Fundamentals of Web Publishing (Parts 1 and 2).

  1. Pages should contain no priority 1 errors as defined by the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 1 Checklist. Examples of compliant code include (but is not limited to): all images having alt-tags; meta tags for each page having descriptive keywords; and page layout being controlled by CSS and DIV tags rather than tables.

    We recommend using the WAVE Accessibility Validator to check code compliance.
     
  2. Pages should comply with the W3C HTML guidelines version 4.01 (validate for at least 4.01 Transitional, although Strict is preferred), and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) level 1 and 2.

    We recommend using the W3C validator to check code compliance.
     
  3. DOC and PDF files should be text-readable by software, not scanned as an image.

  4. It's a good idea to also include a disclaimer on sites that "information in this site is available in alternate formats upon request," and provide contact information.

For additional information, please see the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, UW Technology accessibility guidelines, and UW AccessIT site.

 

 

QA

Design • Accessibility • QA • Content • Marketing

  1. Linking: Links should be checked often and kept current, otherwise the content will be subject to removal. Never duplicate content – link to it instead. Don't link words like "click here," instead link a descriptive phrase of what the link is about. Unless absolutely necessary, don't type out full web addresses in text (use descriptive links). When linking to other files in your site directory, use relative, rather than absolute links.
     
  2. Naming: Name your home page file appropriately for the server you use so that ending a url with a "/" brings up the home page (i.e., default.asp, index.html). Avoid naming web pages with spaces or underscores, and use short descriptive names and folder structures to provide meaning.
     
  3. Images: Optimize images for the web by reducing them to the smallest size and compression while still retaining adequate quality.

 

Content

Design • Accessibility • QA • Content • Marketing

There are many resources available to help develop appropriate web content for your site. There is also a free Writing for the Web Workshop available from UW Catalyst and taught by instructional designers, which we highly recommend.

Some important concepts are provided below, along with additional online resources.

  1. Less is More. Web readers consume only about 20% of the text on a page, and spend about 4.4 seconds per 100 words (from Jakob Nielsen's "writing for the web" article).

    Provide the most important information first and be as succinct as possible. If additional details are necessary, keep your top pages uncluttered and link to the detailed pages so readers can choose to view only what they really need.
     
  2. White space is good. Sensible blank spaces help the page feel uncluttered and inviting.
     
  3. Spell check! Most web editing programs have built in spell checkers.  Attention to grammar and other writing conventions is also important.
     
  4. Visual aids and distractions . Images can provide additional context and break up the monotony of text, but should be used carefully. Don't take up too much screen "real estate" with large images. Animated images or blinking/moving text are considered to be very tacky and a distraction from your content.

For additional information, please see Jakob Nielsen's "writing for the web" article, Ben Hunt's "writing for the web" Scratch Media article, and Steve Krug's book "Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability."

 

Marketing

Design • Accessibility • QA • Content • Marketing

If you don't have a captive audience for your site (such as a class), online marketing is an important consideration.

One of the most effective ways to increase site visibility is through search engine optimization practices (for more information see the UW Technology Search Working Group Wiki on this topic):

  1. Include keywords in META tags.
  2. Include the same keywords in page TITLE tag, which should be customized for each page.
  3. Include the same keywords throughout the page content.
  4. Include keywords in ALT tags on images.
  5. Try to get other sites to link to yours.
  6. Keep content up to date and fresh.

You can determine effective keywords by periodically using a web analytics tool to find out which terms were used to search for and find your site. TIER has a Google Analytics account that can be used to track all sites and provide some basic statistics on usage.

Another method of increasing visibility is to use Google subscribed links (for more information see the UW Technology Search Working Group Wiki on this topic).