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Please contact
Dave Rice,
NDSU Ag Webmaster should you have any questions on the quidelines or suggestions on how to
improve our site.
Thank you.
Draft 5/1/2000
drice@ndsuext.nodak.edu
Dave Rice
Morrill 115, NDSU
Fargo ND 58105-5655
Voice (701)231-7381
FAX (701)231-7044
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NDSU Agriculture Web Development Guidelines
It is important for all Web pages under the direction of the Vice
President for Agriculture to have a consistent look and feel so that our Web visitors can
recognize we are part of the same organization and work as a team, and give us credit for
the information. We need to concentrate on the team approach of the 'us, we, our' concept
versus the 'I, me, my' concept that so many pages on the Web portray.
The following guidelines will ensure a consistent look and feel and
will enable our pages to load quickly. About 70% of our NDSU Agriculture Web visitors are
'clientele' (non-university users) and a vast majority of them access the Web via dial-up
modem from home or work at speeds ranging from12-33.6KB (in other words: slow). Our pages
must load quickly so our visitors don't hit the stop button and go elsewhere. Try to
have your pages load in 15 seconds or less at a 28.8KB transfer rate, use a Web diagnostic
page like Web Site Garage (http://www.websitegarage.com)
or Net Mechanic (http://www.netmechanic.com) to
'test' your pages, also use Bobby (http://www.cast.org/bobby/)
identify and repair significant barriers to access by individuals with disabilities.Guidelines for all of your Web pages:
- Use the NDSU Ag Web or EXT Logo as appropriate
- County Extension Offices should use the EXT logo
- Campus Offices and R&E Centers should use the NDSU Ag Web Logo
- Pages in a series or collection may not need logos
- All pages should be on a white background (for a professional and consistent look)
- No blinking text
- No marquees
- No page counters (Web use statistics can be provided)
- No unnecessary graphics, (Graphicus Horrendus) examples:
- under construction signs (every page should be under construction)
- best viewed with a specific browser (make them look good on all browsers)
- advertisements for specific products
- adding a 'cool' graphic that means nothing
- Try and stay away from using Frames unless you really need to
- Provide links to a logical higher menu
- Use 'go to' versus 'return to' (you never know where our visitors were last)
- Enter author or contact person information (give credit where credit is due)
- Name of individual with clickable email address (either author or contact person)
- Name, address, phone number, URL, etc. of office responsible for this information
- Enter date the document was created or last modified
- Develop a template with a consistent header and footer
- Folder and File Names:
- Keep names fairly short (someone may have to type them in)
- Do not use spaces in folder/file names
- Our server software is case sensitive (G is completely different than g)
- In general, stay away from using punctuation marks
- The - (dash) and _ (underscore) are OK
Guidelines for your Home Page:
Your home page may be your first County, R&E Center, Department or Specialty page.
Examples include: Barnes County, Hettinger Research Extension Center, Animal Science
Department, Small Grains Page, etc.
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