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Web Publishing Checklist

In order to meet federal and university requirements for online communications, all online content should meet accessibility standards (WCAG 2.1 Level AA) as well as university brand and style guidelines. The purpose of these requirements is so that the information being presented can be understood by people of all abilities, to provide consistency of voice, and maintain a certain level of professionalism in university communication. Below is a list of reminders to avoid common or easily made mistakes that will not satisfy the requirements of these guidelines.

Web Publishing Checklist

Accessibility

  • Header tags are being used correctly — no jumping to different levels but being used in succession (i.e. H2 then H3 and another H3 then back to H2, etc. and not starting with H4) and not being used for emphasizing text.
  • Bold, italics, underlining, and all caps are being used to emphasize text and not to make text appear as a header.
  • Images have descriptive alt text and copyright information included.
  • Images do not have text in them unless they are of a logo.
  • Attachments pass Adobe Acrobat and Microsoft's accessibility checkers. Images in an attachment should also have descriptive alt text tagged on the image.
  • Use unique and descriptive text to identify links. Do not use the full URL or words like ‘click here’. Instead, use a word or phrase that describes the information you are linking to.

Identity and Style

  • The name of the university is being used correctly.
  • Correct terms and names are being used according to the Writing Guide. Be careful when referring to the correct name of department verses referring to a location. Use correct location names with proper capitalization when needed.
  • Phone numbers are in the correct format (which is (808) 675-3211 and not 808-675-3211 or 808.675.3211) and also linked (external link should be "tel:##########").
  • Empty lines are used between paragraphs.
  • Headers use correct AP Style title case capitalization.
  • Proper nouns are capitalized according to AP Style capitalization.
    • Titles should not be capitalized unless they are preceding (before) a person's name. For example, "President Kauwe spoke at devotional" is correct but "The student's Academic Advisor was able to help him out a lot" is not correct.
    • When referring to a particular semester using the season, year, and word "semester" should be capitalized such as "Fall 2020 Semester" but when referring to fall semesters in general, the words do not need to be capitalized.
    • Names of departments should be capitalized but if the word "department" or "office" is not part of the official name, do not capitalize the word. For example, "Office of the Registrar" is correct because the word "office" is part of the proper name but "Financial Services office" is used with a lower case "o" to refer to the location of where Financial Services (the proper name of the department) is located.
  • Ampersands (&) are only used when part of a proper name or title (i.e. Campus Safety & Security) and not otherwise used to replace the word 'and.'

Copyright

  • Copyright permission should be obtained for all content published by the university, especially images, music, videos, and attachments. The image content type in Brightspot have fields where the source and copyright information can be stored for future reference.

Functionality

  • Links are working correctly and not pointing to unpublished or missing pages (no 404 errors).
  • URLs are descriptive using dashes between words. This helps search engines find the right information on the page.
  • Email addresses are linked (external link should be "mailto:emailaddress@byuh.edu")