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Best Practices for Web Development

The man who created the World Wide Web in 1993 is Tim Berners-Lee. His creation altered the course of history.

Lee and others from around the globe created the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to oversee the future of the Web. Its purpose is to lead the Web to its  full potential by creating standards that will ensure its long-term growth and its availability to every single person in the world.

The W3C monitors and makes recommendations about the technical underpinnings of the Web. One of its most pressing issues is that of making Web content accessible to the vast majority of users, including people with disabilities such as blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing loss, learning difficulties,  cognitive limitations, limited movement, speech difficulties, photosensitivity and combinations of these.

In other words, the World Wide Web should be technically constructed in a way that everyone can access its content.

The Office of Web Services follows W3C guidelines as well as guidelines of the Illinois Information Technology Accessibility Act (IITAA) to create a UIS Web Site that adheres to standards and is accessible to all users.

Responsible Web Development

For UIS Department and Unit Pages:

1) Adhere to Web standards.

2) Attend our workshops.

  • Web Services offers several workshops and walk-ins during the semester. Past sessions have covered topics such as Best Practices for the Web, Web Accessibility, Social Media, etc.

3) What you can do:

  • Most users aren’t reading on the WWW. They are scanning text. Make good use of lists.
  • Keep your homepage content “above the fold” or readers may never see the content.
  • If a link takes the user to a PDF document, add “(pdf)” next to the link.
  • Don’t list URLs on your webpages. Choose a line of text or a phrase that can contain the link.
  • Don’t convert an entire paragraph into a heading style. Heading styles are only used for the title of a page, section headings, etc.
  • Don’t stretch photos to fit or scale. Resize photos correctly by using a photo-editing tool.

4) Request for Help

  • Please use our Request for Help form should you need any assistance with regards to your website, Web Toolbox, social media, and more.

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