WWW Publishing Guidelines

Design, style, and other considerations

• UMDNJ organization, department and personal WWW page publishers are responsible for their own web documents. This includes avoiding copyright violations, complying with local, state, and federal laws and other UMDNJ policies, and keeping the information up to date.
  
  
• Because web visitors can enter a document directly, without going through a department home page or the UMDNJ home page, it is important to let them know about the UMDNJ organization or department that created the web page they are reading. Include the UMDNJ logo on unit home pages and electronic publications. On other web documents, make sure the reader can learn which UMDNJ unit or affiliate created the document by including that information on the document or by linking back to a UMDNJ web site.

  Include the following on each official department web page

  1. UMDNJ logo
  2. name of the department publishing the document
  3. document or publication title, if appropriate
  4. statement of copyright
  5. name and/or e-mail address of maintainer who is responsible for the document
  6. date of the last update
  7. document URL

• Each UMDNJ unit will determine when it is useful for their individual faculty, staff, or students to have personal home pages for University business.

• Each UMDNJ unit will determine whether it is appropriate for individuals to be linked from their department's home page.

• Each UMDNJ unit head is responsible for deciding whether or not to link to personal home pages from their UMDNJ unit web pages.

• Personal web pages may not contain the UMDNJ logo or other symbols of the University.

• The following disclaimer must be present on all faculty, staff, and student personal WWW documents:
  The views and opinions expressed in this document are strictly those of the document author. The contents of this page have not been reviewed or approved by the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey.

• Copyright laws apply to electronic publishing as well as to print publishing. Be sure you have permission to publish the information (text, graphics, photographs, etc.) on your documents if you are not the author or creator. Photographs of an individual or personal information about an individual must not be included without the permission of the individual.

• Web documents should be well designed and written. The appearance and content are as important as the technical aspects. Get design and writing help if you need it. A style guide and other sources for web page development can be found on this template WWW page. Send a message to www@umdnj.edu for more information. Design seminars and assistance are available.
  
  
• Keep it simple and keep your audience and your medium in mind.
  
  
• When writing your copy, follow the guidelines given in Style and Substance: A Guide to Effective Communication for the UMDNJ Community. If you have a question about proper style for your communications, call the University Publications Office at 2-7280.

• Include the date the material was updated at the bottom of anything you publish.

• Keep in mind that your documents will not look the same to every viewer for a variety of reasons:
  1. Viewers will have a variety of hardware and software.
  2. A large percentage of the people browsing the web use displays showing 16 or fewer colors.
  3. Some people choose not to download graphics or have displays that are not able to show graphics.

• Don't overload with graphics that will slow the document down and frustrate the users. Consider having a text-only shadow document or clickable icons for pictures. The more complex you make your graphics, the longer it will take for documents to load. You may want to connect at a slow speed (2400 baud) and test to see how long it takes.

• When you include graphics, use the ALT component of the HTML IMG tag to include a text description of any graphics you use. Test it that way by turning off the graphics on your web browser.

• Graphics with primary colors may work better than graphics with subtle colors.

• Developers are strongly encouraged to use styles and colors that are easy to read and accessible to as wide an audience as possible. Complicated background patterns and dark background colors can be difficult to read. Some combinations of text and background colors can be completely unreadable by people with color blindness.

• Because documents load from the top down, don't design your pages with large graphics files or all your graphics at the top. Consider the time it takes for viewers to see them.

• Browse the web to see what works and what doesn't.

• Consider how to organize your information, where you want it to be linked, and how to point people to it. Library and information services people can be a good resource.

• Many students have design, WWW, and technology know-how; you may want to advertise for a student worker to help. Send a message to www@umdnj.edu for names of designers who specialize in multimedia or web document design.

• Most web users don't want static information; they want to communicate and navigate through it.

• Personal home documents should be constructed so that they are not wasteful of University resources for frivolous purposes. Restrict use of disk storage for text, graphics, and other information to the limits imposed by your storage quota. (Use the quota -v command at a UNIX prompt to learn your storage limit.)

• Students should notify Academic Computing Services when they graduate, leave school, or no longer need their information published on UMDweb.