Website Content

Purpose

Page content should be relevant, engaging and clear in the messaging or the call to action for the intended audience.

In this section:

Requirements

Use the active voice when writing content. Speak directly to your audience. All websites for colleges, divisions, departments, programs, and institutes that are funded by the University should adhere to NMSU Brand Guidelines. It is strongly recommended for the appropriate VP, Dean, Department Head or Director to review its website content at minimum once per year.

Text and Standard Information

Standard Criteria

• The text on your page should be text, not an image of text.

• The content should be broken up with headings. Use concise headings (h1, h2, h3 tags) to help delineate content hierarchy and to help users scan content. These tags should include words that users may use as search criteria and is specifically related to the page content.

• Make sure that there is enough contrast between text and any background colors or background images.

• Use tables only to display tabular data. Don’t use tables to lay out page content.

Images and Multimedia

Images should be relevant, professional, optimized for the web, and legal.

Standard Criteria

• All images visible to users should have meaningful, descriptive alt tags to comply with Section 508 Standards regarding accessibility guidelines. Images that are purely decorative should have null alt tags.

• Images should be sized appropriately, not stretched or squashed. All images should maintain their original aspect ratio or be cropped to the desired size.

• Adhere to NMSU Identity/Branding standards

• Refrain from using clip art or animated GIFs.

• Make sure you own or have the permission to use any photos for your site. If you are not sure who owns the image or do not have permission to use the image, do not use it.

• Specify your image size or resize your images using image editing software before you upload them. Do not resize images by setting the height and width in your HTML.

If you require assistance, please refer to the NMSU Brand Guidelines or contact MARCOMM.

Multimedia

Standard Criteria

• If you include flash (swf files), video, audio or other media on your site, please provide text alternatives. (e.g. closed captioning, transcripts)

• Flash and multimedia elements should be used appropriately and not as a means of delivering your website content. Websites created entirely in Flash are discouraged.

• The use of Flash to create navigation is also discouraged; if used, a text alternative is also required. 

Hyperlinks

Standard Criteria

•  Hyperlinks and call-to-actions (CTAs) should be succinctly and clearly marked.

• Use concise language as the hyperlinked text.

• Use clear language identifying where the hyperlink is going or what you want the person to do.

• When possible link to a phrase that incorporates contextual information. (i.e. ‘for more human resource benefit information).

• Links to pages within  nmsu.edu  should not open in a new window.

Use and Presentation of Official University Data

To avoid posting conflicts or duplicate information appearing on nmsu.edu , departments should not copy and change official college information. Web pages or content found to be in violation will be removed.

Standard Criteria: Offical University Data

The following list includes is considered “official university data” and must be protected according to its data classification risk sensitivity. Duplication of the following information is strictly prohibited.

• Tuition, fees and scholarship information

• Academic calendars and college deadlines

• Course listings and degree course requirements (maintained by the University Student Records Office)

• Course descriptions other than those provided in the Academic Catalog – https://catalogs.nmsu.edu/

• Academic requirements listed in the college catalog

• College news stories or announcements published by the Marketing and Communications department. Web editors may link to stories featured in the Newsroom or include a “feed” of news content for their college.

• Administrative Rules and Procedures or Regents Policy. Web editors may link to official NMSU policies and procedures at http://arp.nmsu.edu or http://rpm.nmsu.edu .

• Content that is a revision of the university mission, values, university policies or official accreditation marks.

Web Forms

The criteria listed below refer to web-based forms managed by New Mexico State University. Use of web forms should never conflict with the primary business purpose for which the form has been provided nor with those of the university. Web form creators must consider the university’s ethical responsibilities, business interests and applicable laws and regulations.

Standard Criteria

• As a standard guideline, avoid overly long forms. Separate the form into pages if it contains many questions/items/fields.

• All web forms that require personal information from a visitor must post a link to the NMSU privacy policy, “https://nmsu.edu/privacy”

• You must use the university’s chosen software solution to create and manage all web forms.

  • Office 365 Forms or Formstack Forms (public facing websites)

  • Gravity Forms or MS Forms (non-public facing websites)

  • Slate (Prospective Student Recruitment)

• Web forms may not be used to collect sensitive data such as:

  • Identifiable information that does not comply with FERPA — contact the University Student Records Office regarding FERPA compliance.

  • Credit card information — this should only be collected via approved university procedures for collecting such data.

  • Social Security numbers, birthdates and other private information, as these could be used in an inappropriate manner by a third party.

• The university may monitor or review web form software data and communications at any time.

• All data in the university’s computer and communications systems (including documents, other electronic files and chat messages) are the property of the university.

• Software may not be used to create or transmit material that is derogatory, defamatory, obscene or offensive. Such material includes, but is not limited to, slurs, epithets or anything that might be construed as harassment or disparagement based on race, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability or religious or political beliefs.

• The software may not be used to solicit or proselytize others for commercial purposes, causes, outside organizations, chain messages or other non-job-related purposes.

• NMSU websites containing web forms must be regularly scanned for web vulnerabilities.

Documents for the Web

HTML is the preferred method for web content. The file format chosen should be based upon intended use and intended audience. PDF, Doc, and Doc(x) formats each have specific advantages and, in many cases, either format is acceptable. You should only use PDFs when there is no other way to post the content on the web.  

When use a Adobe PDF Document

• The original document contains complex graphics or layouts

• The content rarely changes

• PDF should be used when high print quality is required. PDF can display high resolution images and illustrations better than doc or docx.

• Documents scanned into a PDF format negate most of the advantages of PDF and should only be used when other methods are not available. In addition, documents scanned as PDF are not indexable by Google, have large file sizes, and text cannot be selected from the document without Adobe Acrobat.

Standard Criteria for PDFs

• PDFs should be accessible and include the creation date.

• All PDFs posted on departmental sites must include the official departmental logo provided by MARCOMM.

Standard Criteria for DOCX formats

• Microsoft doc or docx formats are best suited to documents that need to be edited and for general Word processing tasks.

• It is recommended that the docx format be used instead of doc format. 

*Editable Forms: Adobe requires Adobe Acrobat to create editable forms.

*Legal Documents: Legal documents in doc or docx format must be protected to prevent changes. Documents authored in Adobe Acrobat may be malleable if not secured.

*Secured Document: Securing the document, protecting the document with a password and encryption, is inadvisable in some case. There are better methods for securing information.

*Small File Size: PDFs must be optimized for the web to achieve a small file size. Word documents saved as PDF may be much larger than the original Word format.

Archiving Content

The CMS is not a repository or archive for historic content. As content becomes out-of-date or irrelevant, it must be unpublished and deleted from the CMS and web servers.

Standard Criteria 

• If content expires but you would like to save it as part of your historical archive, please do so on an external hard drive, your NMSU computer or elsewhere on a server.

• Certain content may expire but may be needed in the future; this content may reside in the CMS but must be unpublished and moved to an unpublishable folder clearly marked in the CMS as archived content.