[EDIT 772 home] [Jeff Williamson home]
*!* = Easy to miss
1. Overall features and compatibility issues
Beginning class -The site should not use frames
Advanced class -The site may use frames with justificationThe site should look and function acceptably in Netscape versions 3 and 4 and one version of Internet Explorer (3, 4, or 5). Note that "acceptable" does not have to mean "the same"
The site should look acceptable on Mac and Windows platforms.
The site should look acceptable in different screen resolutions (e.g. 640x480 and 800x600). Unplanned horizontal scrolling is not acceptable.
Beginning class - Pages may be linked to an external style sheet.
Advanced class - Pages may be linked to an external style sheet.
2. Navigation
The site should have some sort of persistent and consistent navigation controls (e.g. links to home page and main pages, and same links in same order on every page)
At least the main page, and preferrably every page, should have a last modified date and a contact e-mail for the author.
The site should have some sort of common theme or design. This includes repeated colors, graphics, phrases, layout and/or themes.
3. Design and engagement
Pages should make good use of color
Layout should be consistent across the site
The size, weight, color, and placement of elements in navigation pages should vary enough to give users an indication of where to begin
4. Links, directories, and file names
Most links should be relative, so that the site should run equally well on a floppy or the WWW.
The main page of the site, and the main pages within the subdirectories or folders, should be named "index.html" - lower case, four-letter extension (a requirement of GMU's web server)
The number of required clicks to reach content should be minimal - say, 3 clicks.
File names must not contain spaces and should have consistent endings (e.g. all .html or all .htm, but not both).
File names should be meaningful, e.g. "illegal_condiments.html" rather than "page2.html"
*!* Page titles should match page content, i.e. when you re-use a template page, be sure you change the HTML title and not just the filename.
5. Graphics and colors
Graphics should load at an appropriate speed over a dialup Internet connection. (i.e. be sure you test your site on the net, and not just on your local machine). Large graphics and slower loads can be justified if they are crucial to your objectives. Full-page graphics - background or foreground - are unacceptable under almost every circumstance.
HTML tags for graphics should roughly match the graphics' true sizes, i.e. large graphics should not simply have their tags resized.
*!* When background images are used, background color must also be specified.
*!* ALT text should be supplied for all graphics.
*!* Text to be displayed under images should always be preceded by <br clear="all">
Body and table colors should be taken from the 216 color palette. Please specify background, text, and other color values in hexadecimal format.
GIF and JPEG formats should be used appropriately
Transparent graphics should not have halos (in general this happens when you use anything other than transparent-on-white graphics).
5. Text
Attributes (headings, font sizes, colors, or other characteristics) of major headings, subheadings, and body text should be consistent and specified in your design treatment. If you wish to use colors other than default values for links and visited links, please specify these, too.
Blinking text (a design evil) or *!* underline text (which looks too much like links) should not be used.
Line lengths of text pages should not run the entire width of the browser window - this is too hard to read.
Text on content pages should print acceptably well.
Font faces should make appropriate accomodations for users whose machines do not have the primary specified font.
Intermediate class suggestion: Use a linked style sheet and careful planning for font-face markup. It is stunningly easier than element-level hard-coding of font faces.
6. Tables
Table coding for layouts should be consistent, e.g. if some tables have 20% and 80% column widths, then no tables should have 25% or 125-pixel widths.