Websites
All UAF websites must:
- Use the UAF official web banner.
- Include the name of the unit prominently near the top of the page.
- Provide contact information for the unit, including address, phone and email.
- Include required language in the website's footer:
- The University of Alaska Fairbanks is an AA/EO employer and educational institution and prohibits illegal discrimination against any individual: Learn more about UA's notice of nondiscrimination.
- Meet a minimum of WCAG2AA accessibility compliance.
- You can scan your website for errors using a variety of tools for checking web accessibility.
- Find out more about web accessibility at UAF.
The UA Office of Information Technology uses Omni CMS at UAF and UA Statewide as the official web content management system. Omni CMS templates feature more design flexibility, additional components, and have mobile-friendly responsive design.
Hosting, support, basic website creation and editor administration for Omni CMS websites is managed by OIT, free of charge to UAF departments. Additionally, Omni CMS website templates meet the UAF website requirements by default, and are automatically included in UA's Google Custom Search Engine located in the official web banner above. Developing a UAF website on a non-OIT-supported server or platform is not advised.
The official UAF web banner (as seen at the top of this page) is required on all official UAF department or program websites. Use of the UAF banner is reserved for official UAF department and program websites and may not be used on nonaffiliated sites.
If there is a question about whether or not your site qualifies to use the official web banner, or if you need assistance applying the banner to a website not hosted on Omni CMS, contact a University Relations web developer at uaf.web@alaska.edu or 907-474-6281.
The official UAF web banner should be a UAF blue bar at the top of the page and contain the UAF web banner logo with the words "UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA FAIRBANKS" in a single line of white text on the left. The logo and words should be linked to the UAF home page at https://uaf.edu/.
Official UAF web banner example
If you are developing a UAF website on the New Google Sites, follow the instructions below to apply the UAF brand your website.
- Hover over the top of your New Google Sites website and click "Add logo".
- Upload the horizontal UAF logo or your unit's horizontal UAF unit signature. If your unit does not have a unit signature, you can request one from uaf-logo@alaska.edu.
- Hover over the bottom of your New Google Sites website and click "Add Footer".
- From the Insert>Layouts pane on the right, select desired text and image layout and drag it to the footer.
- Add required language to the site footer:
- The University of Alaska Fairbanks is an AA/EO employer and educational institution and prohibits illegal discrimination against any individual: Learn more about UA's notice of nondiscrimination.
- Page title, headings and subheadings
- Concise (50-60 characters max with spaces)
- Contains keyword(s)
- Avoid acroynms
- Meta description
- Concise (130 characters max with spaces)
- Contains keyword(s)
- Avoid acronyms
- Active voice
- Page body content
- Break up text with headings and subheadings (see above)
- Contains keyword(s)
- Plain language
- Active voice
- Short paragraphs
- Short sentences
- Bulleted lists
- Optimize text with free tools for grammar, spelling, readability.
- Links
- Not compliant with accessibility guidelines
- Not search engine friendly
- Bad example: Register for our event here.
- Bad example: Click here to register for our event.
- Good example: Register for our event.
- Bad example: For more information, visit www.uaf.edu/example.
- Good example: Visit the example website for more information.
- Avoid link text such as "here", "click here", or web addresses.
- Examples:
- Images
- Headings: 1920x720 pixels recommended
- Body: 600x400 pixels recommended
- Faster page load is better for Search Engine Optimization, mobile/rural/international/limited-bandwidth users
- Not compliant with accessibility guidelines
- Not search engine friendly
- Does not scale well for mobile devices.
- File names should be descriptive, avoid spaces and special characters.
- Image descriptions (alt tags) should be meaningful/concise (130 characters max with spaces)
- Strive for consistent image size/crop on all images
- Strive for a file size under 150kb
- Images MAY NOT be used as a substitute for written webpage content.
- PDFs and Word documents
- Indicate in link that users will be downloading a document: "Application form (PDF)"
- PDF/Word forms SHOULD also have a Google or DocuSign version.
- PDF/Word documents MAY NOT be used as a substitute for written webpage content.
- Video/audio
- Video must have captions
- Audio must have transciptions