Web Standards

[Related: Faculty, Departmental, and Student Organization Web Site Publishing]

Visual Standards

1. Web Site Fonts: The web site font face is Verdana. Pagaraph tags determining style can be assigned in OmniUpdate, the school's content management system, from the Format pulldown menu: p (body text), li (bulleted text), heading 1, heading 2, heading 3, etc.

   When pasting in material from Word, you must use the "paste from Word" option in the Paste dropdown menu. To paste other material, "paste clean" option will ensure your fonts default to the school's standards. If your formatting will not apply, it is because you have pasted in text that already was formatted in some other program. Try clicking the "remove formatting" button. If that does not work, you will need to paste in your text again, or edit the page's HTML code.

   Font color on the web site is black. Links will default to the correct color once you click on the Insert Link button and add their url in OmniUpdate. Unvisited link color is #36648b. Visited link color is #607b8b. On-hover link color is #990000.

   Heading 1 is the style for main page headings. Heading 2 or heading 3 may be used for subheadings.

2. Web Site Colors: The web site red is #cc0000. The light beige value is #eae5d4 and the dark beige is #d7cabd. All page backgrounds are white. Table backgrounds can be white or #eae5d4. Table headers can be white or #d7cabd. (Example: http://www.jmls.edu/careersvcs/index.shtml.) Table borders can be invisible, black, gray, or #d7cabd.

3. Web Site Navigation: All web pages must contain the left navigation buttons, top navigation bar, and breadcrumb links (the text links under the top navigation bar that keep visitors from getting lost). These navigation elements will be created automatically in OmniUpdate when a new page is made.

   Individual departments also may add a tertiary navigation to the right side of the page. An example of this is found at http://www.jmls.edu/academics/tax_eb_law/eb_law_main.shtml. This format may be selected when creating a new page.

4. Web Site Images: Any use of the law school's logo or banner must follow the official visual standards: www.jmls.edu/INTRANET/ia/visualstandards.pdf. (Note, though, that the web site version of the masthead is different from the print version, with the logo image to the left of the text instead of above it, to conserve valuable page screen space.

   The official "The John Marshall Law School" masthead (logo and banner) must appear at the top of all web pages.

   Other images may be used on the web site after they are optimized for the web. Main web pages (e.g., each departmental home page) may have one vertical photo (or a collection of multiple photos) across the top of the page, 605 pixels wide by 134 pixels high (e.g., http://www.jmls.edu/academics/index.shtml). On pages with the tertiary right navigation, the image size is 417 pixels wide by 134 high (e.g., http://www.jmls.edu/academics/ibt_law/ibt_main.shtml).

5. Web Site Footer: The official John Marshall footer must appear at the bottom of all web pages. The footer contains copyright and contact information, and links to the school's RSS feeds and privacy policy pages.

Miscellaneous Style Issues

• Any use of phone numbers should use periods instead of hyphens between the numbers.

• Any use of the word "e-mail" shall be spelled with a hyphen.

• The term "JMLS" may not be used. Instead, "the school," "the law school," "The John Marshall Law School" or "John Marshall" should be used as appropriate.

• In order to achieve proper indents for bulleted and numbered items, use the auto bullet or auto number button in OmniUpdate.

Revision Procedures

• Each department and student organization is responsible for its own web site, including creation and maintenance of pages. Web pages should be updated as frequently as possible in order to keep the visitors coming back to the site, and the keep the school's pages very high in search engine results.

  Individuals may be trained on OmniUpdate, the school's content management system, by contacting the web site manager, or by completing the online tutorials at help.omniupdate.com. Upon completion of training, users will be issued a user name and password.

• Any photo or graphic image to be used on the web site must be optimized for the web. If you need help with optimization, contact the web site manager. Images that are not optimized and are too big will be deleted from the web site and web server.

• Web page metatags (the Description and Key Words fields in OmniUpdate that are completed when creating a new page) should include descriptors by which visitors to the school's web site, or to any search engine such as Google, might find the web page in a search.

• Any links that point to sites outside of the John Marshall web site must open in another browser window. (In OmniUpdate, choose _blank in the target window dropdown after you have clicked on the insert link button, where you type in your linked page's url.)

• A dean must pre-approve any additions or revisions to any part of the web site. Assistant Dean John McNamara oversees enforcement of web site policy and visual standards.

• Files should be checked back into OmniUpdate when work on them is finished, in case of global search and replaces on the site.

• Since it is difficult to move existing files from one folder to another in OmniUpdate and maintain the correct navigation systems and breadcrumb links, users should ensure they are in the correct folder/directory when creating a new file.

• All online forms must utilize the OmniUpdate online interactive form function, except for those requiring credit card or other confidential information. Absolutely no credit card information may be accepted via the John Marshall web site. One may only create a page with an interactive form function by selecting New Page with form when creating a new page.

• All web site content must adhere to The John Marshall Law School's privacy policy.

• If you encounter any problems with OmniUpdate or need help, please contact the web site manager or view the OmniUpdate tutorials and user manual.