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Standards Checklist

Please be aware that if you are using Contensis our Content Management System to manage your website, many of these checklist items are taken care of by the system and templates. 

  • The University of Bolton logo should be clearly visible in the top right-hand corner and should link back to the University homepage, http://www.bolton.ac.uk/
  • Third-party advertising or commercial promotion is not allowed on University Web sites.
  • All web sites on the bolton.ac.uk domain should comply with University's legal and policy guidelines.

Target Browsers

  • Netscape Navigator 4.x, 6.x and above (Windows, MacOS). Although the University is to discontinue support of NS 4, you should still test your site in this browser. Make sure your content is always accessible even if the display may not look the same in all browsers.
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.x and above (Windows, MacOS).
  • Lynx (UNIX).
  • Mozilla 1.x (UNIX).
  • To check compatibility, there are a number of options. To check different versions of IE go to http://ipinfo.info/netrenderer/ also if you do a search on Google for Browser Compatibility you will find a number of different options.

Coding

  • Frames are not supported and should be avoided
  • Use Cascading Style Sheets.
  • Pages should be functional without Java, Javascript, CSS, Flash or browser specific tags.
  • Pages should validate to HTML 4.01 or XHTML 1.0 transistional (use W3C validator at http://validator.w3.org/ to check)
  • Include a DOCTYPE statement on every page, eg:
    <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
  • Don't use prorietary code (eg MS hover) and don't copy and paste from MSWord HTML
  • Use either CGI Scripting or MySQL with php or Javascript/Java to introduce interactivity and to make sure that important content remains accessible
  • Use valid CSS cascading stylesheet (use http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/(external link) to validate)
  • The head of each document should contain a meaningful title, followed by keyword and description meta tags for better search engine indexing.
  • Folder and filenames published using Contensis can be captilised but with no spaces. For example this webpage is at;
    /WebPublishing/Standards/Checklist.aspx
     Files published on data.bolton should be all lowercase, no spaces.
    /webpublishing/standards/checklist.aspx
  • Tables should be coded with proportional widths (ie, stretchable to accommodate a variety of monitor resolutions).
  • The pages should be designed so the main information is visible at a screen resolution of 800x600 pixels. To achieve this, all primary elements (navigation, main content, etc.) must be no wider than 760 pixels, and the page should not lose data when printed with default settings.
  • Minimise use of plugins and always include a link to download
  • All web sites must be SENDA (Special Educational Needs & Disability Act) compliant and use style sheets.

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File and folder naming

  • URLs should be short and descriptive
  • URLs can be upper and lower case, but must have NO spaces; use a hyphen to join terms not underscores
  • All folders must contain a file named 'Home' (this becomes Home.aspx once published). On data.bolton it is 'index.html'.

Fonts

  • Cascading Style Sheets control the use of fonts so none need to be applied when developing pages whilst using the Content Management System.
  • If you are publishing pages on data.bolton using your own templates then please ensure that the Font face degrades gracefully, eg <arial, helvetica, lucida sans, sans-serif>
  • Avoid fixing font size as users will be unable to adjust the size. As a guide, body text should be default size.12px is the recommended minimum size for body text. Relative size of 1 can be used for menu items and copyright information. No text, including a footer, should be smaller than 10px.

Graphics and Color

  • Where possible, design for the 216 colors in the web-safe color palette.
  • Keep file size of graphics minimal. Use jpg format for photos and gif format for other artwork. Resolution should be 72 dpi. Do not resize images Total page download time should not exceed the equivalent of 9 seconds at speeds comparable to a 56K modem. Page load times can be checked with NetMechanic's HTML toolbox.
  • Any transparent images used to hold positioning (spacer gifs, shim gifs) should have a null alt attribute (alt="").
  • Include width and height attributes to decrease page loading time. Do not use the width and height attributes to resize an image; this is likely to distort the image and will increase your page's loading time.
  • Animated images should be avoided.

Printing

  • Always check that your pages print correctly (ie text is not cut-off when printed).

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