Website Best Practices

Best Practices For Organizing Your Website:

First consider how you want information flow/web traffic to be handled on your channel (web site). 

• Once you understand how people are going to use your home page (index.htm) and other information then you can start to organize your information into web pages.  Another way to think of this plan is how you organize information ( such as Word or Excel files) into folders and subfolders on your computer's file and folder system under "My Documents".  To start with, try drawing on paper a system of web pages that would organize your information on the web for the public to find and understand what your program or department offers.  Start with a home page "index",  holding the key information about your program or department.  Index.htm also will have links to other important information that people want to find.  Index.htm will also be the first (default) page that our OC web server will display to someone who visits your site. 
• Have a few students review your design and suggest what they need. 
• Then present your design to the administrator of your department or program to make sure they are "on board" with your design.  If you like, IT will consult with you about web design and best practices. 

Contact the HelpDesk (7600 or HelpDesk@oc.ctc.edu) to create a task for website design or re-design.

Privacy and Review processes

• Always have "two sets of eyes" review web content before it is published.  If your supervisor (or a person who is experienced in college processes)  reviews the content on the pages.  Your department will have a better chance of catching errors that could mislead students or the public. 
• We also do not want to violate FERPA rules (review http://www.olympic.edu/stafffaculty/policies/ferpatest  for an understanding of how to follow FERPA rules). 
• Also, content on the web should respect the privacy of members of this campus community. 

Having another person review content placed on the web will help ensure that the OC web site is professional, accurate and respects privacy.  Try to following the recommendations in the "Web Writing Styles and Techniques" (Quick Links on the left navigation bar) to make your pages easy to read for web audiences.

Information that might be appropriate for your index.htm page

• Program or department title (put in Heading 1--H1)
• Office location, phone number and office email, office hours
• Key staff and contact information
• department mission statement or a list of services performed
• last date page was updated and a web author email contact for visitors to suggest changes