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Web Standards

Pepperdine University is committed to following today's web standards and best practices. Learn more about our web best practices below.

Accessibility

Pepperdine University strives to follow WCAG 2.1 AA compliance standards. Accessibility on the web is a legal requirement and a social issue. There is a misconception that the main focus of web accessibility is for people with permanent or long-term disabilities, but accessibility benefits people with or without disabilities. Learn more about Pepperdine's Web Accessibility Policy

All web editors are required to complete a web accessibility training course in order to help maintain the University's compliance goals.

Images for Web

Web images should be saved at a lower quality and be optimized for web. Crop images to the appropriate size it will be displayed at (see web sizes) to minimize slower page speed loads.

Images must have an alt description for accessibility.
Example: <img alt="Image Description" .../>

Images should never be used as text nor should text be on an image. If you feel you need to put a title on an image the font should be bolded and 26px or larger in order to be legible when the image is scaled down on a mobile phone device. All text on an image must be transcribed in the image alt description in order to be accessible to all users.

Responsive Web Design

Responsive Web Design (RWD) is a Web design approach aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing experience—easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling—across a wide range of devices (from mobile phones to desktop computer monitors).

A site designed with RWD adapts the layout to the viewing environment by using fluid, proportion-based grids, flexible images, and CSS3 media queries, an extension of the @media rule.

Vertical Scrolling

The most important information should appear near the top of your page. However, screen resolution and browser viewport dimensions vary from computer to computer. All of your information does not need to fit "above the fold". Generally, users expect to scroll and it is best to meet user expectations.

Writing for Web

Web Content Writing Guidelines

  • Put your most important information first.
  • Be brief and direct. Write short paragraphs and minimize unnecessary words.
  • Group content with headings for users that scan the page.
  • Write clear links that explain what the user is clicking on. Do not create links that use the phrase "click here".
  • Don't use your space or time for welcoming people. They are looking for valuable content and answers.
  • Bulleted lists are preferred. You can link to longer pages that have more details if you use this technique.
  • Use essential, meaningful sub-headings. Don't try to be clever or play on words.
  • More tips on writing on the web

  • Differentiate linked text from unlinked text.
  • Make link text work in context.
  • Make it scannable (that is, make it work if not out of context, then without the context of the sentence that includes it).
  • Keep it short but predictive of what users will get when they click.
  • Put the words related to that prediction at the start of the link text.

Additional Styling

The elements on your site should not be styled with thick borders, rounded corners, or another arbitrary styling. Your web pages should follow Pepperdine's Brand Identity Guide, Web Styling, and Training Guidelines.

Support

IMC does not support IE 11 and older browsers.

For web feedback please click on the "Web Feedback" link at the bottom of the Pepperdine websites.