It is important for all Web pages under the direction of the Vice President for Agriculture and University Extension 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 60% 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 from 28-56KB (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 33.6KB transfer rate, use a Web diagnostic page like Net Mechanic ( http://www.netmechanic.com/products/TryIt.shtml ) to 'test' your pages, also use WebXACT ( http://webxact.watchfire.com/ ), a free online service that lets you test single pages of web content for quality, accessibility, and privacy issues.  identify and repair significant barriers to access by individuals with disabilities.

General Guidelines:

• Use the appropriate Logos - See: http://www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/policy/
• County Extension Offices should use the EXT logo
• Keep your home page short, (visible on one screen, one printed page max)
• 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
• Do not use Frames, they are not compatible with our headers & footers
• 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 (in addition to the automatic ones)

• All pages should be on a white background (for a professional and consistent look)
• Text should be black, or a very dark color (the greatest contrast is black text on a white background)
• Use the Arial font - research has determined this is one of the best fonts for online reading
• Use a font size of 12 or greater - again the easiest to read
• Keep links standard - do not change color or remove underline
• Do not use the "open new browser" link option
• 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)
  • All file types should be in lower case ( .htm .jpg )
  • In general, stay away from using punctuation marks
  • The - (dash) and _ (underscore) are OK 
•  

See Jakob Nielsen's Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2005

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 and Range Science Department, Small Grains Page, etc.

The new Ag server ( www.ag.ndsu.edu )

• The new server will automatically display the headers and footers

The old Ag server ( www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu )

• Provide a link to the main NDSU Ag page (http://www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/)

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.

drice@ndsuext.nodak.edu
Dave Rice
Morrill 115, NDSU
Fargo ND 58105-5655
Voice (701)231-7381
FAX (701)231-7044