Published Web Pages

Purpose

All websites should be evaluated prior to launch for digital accessibility, quality assurance and brand compliance. MARCOMM may provide notice to web content editors with websites out of compliance. This action does not aim to police content, but to ensure its accuracy and exigency. .

Requirements

We encourage web content editors to refer to the checklist below regularly—before and during the site development process..

Standard Criteria for Digital Accessibility

• Images have accurate, descriptive alternative text.

• Section headings are used to organize content and are written in title case or sentence case.

• Links have a clear purpose based on the link text alone. (e.g. the phrase “more information” is linked, instead of “click here for more information”).

• Text conveys information rather than images of text (e.g. JPEGs, PNGs and other image files should not be used to display text).

• Site complies with NMSU’s Digital Accessibility standards and is checked with a web accessibility evaluation tool such as SiteImprove.

Standard Criteria for University Identity

• Site complies with NMSU’s Visual Identity Guidelines and Editorial Style Guide.

• NMSU’s universal website header and footer should be used for school, academic division, department, program, office, institute, center or university-wide initiative websites.

Standard Criteria for Quality Assurance and Best Practice

• Content is accurate, up-to-date and free of typos.

• The site is responsive and mobile-friendly.

• Images are optimized (e.g. generally less than 200 KB in file size).

• Images used in Cascade CMS template features or components are sized properly according to guidelines.

• Site does not duplicate information from authoritative University sources (e.g. course information, tuition and fees, academic calendar dates, etc.).

• Navigation is clear, concise and facilitates access to the information visitors seek.