Website Basics

Standards and Guidelines

To provide a quality experience to our users it is essential that we are consistent in both design and content of our websites. Consistency is the biggest factor that separates a negative experience from a positive one.  

The following are basic guidelines and standards to familiarize yourself when working on your website. 

Quick Tips

  • Think about what you put on your page, keep your audience in mind and be clear and concise in your messaging.
  • All pages on the website should have a consistent look to maintain a consistent brand.
  • The content on your site should be consistent in tone, mood, quality, and quantity.
  • If it’s not ready, don’t include it or don’t publish it.  Don’t use “Coming soon…”, “Under Construction”, or any other similar wording. 
  • Do not include "News" section if you are not going to be updating on a regular basis.

Text Standards

What to do:

  • Use digital brand fonts. All main body text should be Helvetica Neue. All headings should be Proxima Nova. Refer to the UAF branding guidelines for UAF-specific font requirements. For the most part these are standard, but in some cases if you copy and paste you may need to clear formatting to set to default text styles.
  • Make sure to proofread all text and perform spell check.
  • Be clear, concise and simple in your copy. Get to the point.
  • Make sure the most important information takes precedence.
  • Put yourself in the shoes of someone coming to your page for the first time – get to know your audiences.
  • Speak to your audience, don’t dumb down your content, but make it as simple and easy to digest as possible.

What not to do:

  • Don’t change the font face.
  • Don’t change the font color.
  • Don’t change the font size outside of the predefined size options.
  • Don’t add background colors to your text.
  • Don’t bold, underline or italicize all your text — if it’s all bold, italicized or underlined, none of it will stand out.
  • Don’t add additional space between characters.
  • Don’t use excessive exclamation points or all caps — your audience will think you’re yelling at them.
  • Do not delete or rename the index file.
    An index file must be present in each directory, adhering to established conventions and best practices! It is a default landing page for that specific directory, and its presence ensures proper functioning, accessibility, and content visibility of your website. 

 

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