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Official UNC Asheville web sites -- particularly sites developed by administrative departments and offices -- should use the approved templates. A common layout and design for official sites, based on the templates, will provide a consistent, professional appearance for the university's web site and will facilitate user access to the information. Assistance is available for departmental webmasters who work with the template. If you require assistance with a web project that is beyond the templates, please contact webmaster@unca.edu

Use of the templates for all official web pages (i.e. those which are intended as official public information about academic and administrative departments, offices and other divisions of the university, and excluding personal home pages, student organization pages, and those which are intended primarily for restricted, internal audiences) will ensure adherence to the following guidelines:

University Identification and Web Site Department Headers

Every official UNC Asheville web site should include clear identification of UNC Asheville. This can be accomplished by using an official web site "header" developed for your department by the Computer Center. The header contains five links: to the university's home page, to the calendar of events, to people/directories, to the site map, and to the search feature. In order to obtain a header for your area, do not "copy and paste" the source code from your browser and modify the header using imaging tools. (Doing so will eventually cause images to "break" and will make future updates to your pages cumbersome.) Instead, please contact webmaster@unca.edu for directions on how to include the header in your web site. An official header will be developed for your office, department or organization.

It is recommended that all levels of your web site contain the official header, but at the very least the top three levels of your web site should contain the official header.  A "level" is defined as a "click;" i.e., from the front page of your web site, the first three "clicks" a user makes should always lead to a page which contains an official web site header, unless that page is that of another web site.

Navigation/Menu of Links

On the main (index) page of your web site, links to the main areas of your site should be included on the left-hand side. When appropriate, large sections should be organized into smaller sections and links provided directly to each sub section.

Official UNC Asheville Web Site Footers

Each page in your web site should include the standard footer visible in all official UNC Asheville web pages. The footer contains links to all major areas of the web site and looks like this:

To include this footer, do not "copy and paste" the source code of pages with the footer from your browser.  Instead, please contact webmaster@unca.edu for directions on how to include the footer in your web site.  By using the code provided to you by the university webmaster, the footer file is called from a different area of the web server. If there is a need to change the footer (for example, if a new major area of the web site is added or changed), the footers throughout your site will be automatically updated. More information about using web site footers is available in the template section.

Departmental Contact Information

The main (index) page of your web site should include contact information for the department, including address, phone, fax, and e-mail address and/or link to the person or group responsible for the page.

Proofreading

As an academic institution, UNC Asheville requires that college web pages be free of spelling errors. For questions about college style (capitalization, punctuation, etc.), send an e-mail to pubinfo@unca.edu

Link Integrity

All links throughout your site should function. As content on the World Wide Web is fluid and ever-changing, so are pages to which you might link. Check your links at least once a month to ensure that they function and lead to the page you desire. If you are linking to an external web site (i.e., a site other than a UNC Asheville web site), it is recommended that the link open in a new browser window. This can be accomplished by using a special target tag in your link. An example follows:

Visiting Asheville?  Contact the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce.

The code follows:

Visiting Asheville?  Contact the
<a href="http://www.ashevillechamber.org/"
target="_blank">Asheville
Area Chamber of Commerce</a>.

Content Accuracy

It is important that the content of your web site is up-to-date and accurate. Please check with the appropriate office regarding all facts and figures on your web site. It is also advised that you review content on your site at least monthly and update as necessary. If you need assistance updating your web site, please contact webmaster@unca.edu

Link to Main UNC Asheville Web Page

If your site does not employ the official header, you should include an easily identifiable link back to the main page of the UNC Asheville web site.

Accessibility and Usability

Official pages should be viewable and usable by the broadest range of platforms, browsers, and equipment.

• Use Valid HTML
  All official pages should be tested for validity using the W3C HTML Validation Service and verified as HTML 4.01 Transitional compliant.
• Bobby 3.2 Approved
  All official pages should be tested for accessibility using Bobby 3.2 and verified as Priority 1 compliant.
• Page Width
  All official pages should be fully viewable on an 640 x 480 pixel screen without horizontal scrolling. Practically, this means that defined table widths or combined widths of images should not exceed 600 pixels.
• Browser Compatibility
  Official pages should be viewable with at least the following browsers: Netscape 3.0 and higher; Internet Explorer 3.0 and higher; and AOL. It is recommended that you use both Internet Explorer and Netscape on both PC and Macintosh platforms to ensure that your pages may be viewed by the greatest number of users. You may also wish to consider what your site may be viewed like using other browsers such as Opera, Lynx, or WebTV.
• Alternate Text
  To facilitate use by text-only browsers, every image should be accompanied by an ALT tag with descriptive text explaining the image. Spacing gifs, bullets, and other incidental images should use an empty ALT tag (ALT="").
• Frames
  UNC Asheville highly recommends against the use of frames; however, if frames are used, provisions should be made for non-frames browsers. One reasonable approach is to add a <NOFRAMES> tag, which links either to the main content frame or to an alternative page.
• Java and JavaScript
  Browsers used by the visually-impaired often do not implement Java or JavaScript. Essential functions should not be implemented with Java or JavaScript.

Typeface

It is strongly recommended that official UNC Asheville web sites use a sans serif font as specified using the <FONT> tag -- an example follows:

Your web pages should use sans serif fonts.

The code follows:

<font size="2"
face="arial,geneva,helvetica,verdana,swiss">Your
web pages should use sans serif fonts.</font>

You should specify multiple fonts since the font you specify may not be installed on the computer viewing your web pages.

Color Scheme

The colors of the header and navigation section were selected to complement each other.  The color of blue used (#000066) is from the 216-color web-safe palette -- more information is available in the template section.

Link Color

Link color and style is determined by using the UNC Asheville web stylesheet and also specified in the <BODY> tag for those browsers which do not support stylesheets (more information is available in the template section).

Active links appear blue: ACTIVE LINK COLOR
Hover links appear maroon: HOVER LINK COLOR
(Only supported in IE and the most recent version of Netscape 6)
Visited links appear gray: VISITED LINK COLOR

Images

All images should specify HEIGHT and WIDTH to facilitate efficient page download.  Every image should also be accompanied by an ALT tag with descriptive text explaining the image. Spacing gifs, bullets, and other incidental images should use an empty ALT tag (ALT="")