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Style and Format

Consistency

The most important thing is to pick a style and a format for your site and stick with it! This includes page layout, verbiage, audience, color scheme, images.

The USGS Visual Identity System helps to "brand" USGS products and provides a very minimal set of requirements for web page appearances. Details on this in the next section.

Navigation Aids

You never know which page a user might enter your site on so provide clear navigation on all pages -- if they get lost they may not return.

Local site keyword search capability is very valuable. This can be provided by creating a form to interface with the USGS search engine. (Discussed further on :-)

The USGS banner on all web pages must be linked to the USGS home page with ALT text of , "Link to USGS home page".

All top level pages must link to the USGS home page and must link to the home pages for each discipline.

We should remember that not everyone who visits our pages will know the scope of the USGS mission.

<a name="somethingUnique"> tags must be used consistently to allow links between web sites and on your own pages. H2 and H3 level headers are good targets for tagging this way.

The TITLE must match the first heading, and should make sense out of context.

Header and Footer

Every page must identify its affiliation, with the widespread use of frames it could wind up with someone else's banner riding on top of it.

• Feedback links/contact information/maintainer information - a must
• Provide last updated information, this can be done with server-side includes

User Feedback

Most pages should direct the user to an appropriate feedback form which includes an email address.

Limit Vertical Scrolling

Keep web pages brief; many users will not see information "below the fold" (where they would have to use the scroll bar).

Design Your Site From the Outside In

Avoid "discipline", "division" and other references to our internal organizational structure.

Additional High Level Guidelines for Homepage Usability from Jakob Neilsen

• Provide a one-sentence tag line: what the organization does; what the site offers
• The <title> will be the bookmark they find... think alphabetical and that it should stand alone
• Group corporate information in one distinct area
• Emphasize site's high-priority tasks
• Include a search box
• Reveal content through examples rather than descriptions
• Begin link names with most important keyword
• Provide easy access to recent features
• Don't over format critical content
• Use meaningful graphics

Style Guides -- no endorsement claimed!

• HyperContent, HyperJunk -- Hypertext theory as if the WWWeb matters
• Composing Good HTML by James "Eric" Tilton and Carl Steadman
• W3C Style Guide for online hypertext
• USGS WWW Guidelines: Presentation of USGS Data and Publications on the World Wide Web

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"Mastering a Web Site" online course Created and maintained by Lorna Schmid and David Boldt. http://water.usgs.gov/usgs/training/webmaster/style.html     Last modified: Tue Nov 18 17:44:02 EST 2003