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Web Guidelines

 

UT Tyler Web Guidelines

Purpose

The UT Tyler website is the public face of the university and a primary touchpoint for prospective students and other audiences. These guidelines ensure a consistent, accessible, and positive user experience for all site visitors.

Core Web Values

  • Identity: All web pages must clearly reflect UT Tyler branding.
  • Usability: Sites should be easy to navigate, quick to load, and simple to understand.
  • Accessibility: All content must comply with accessibility standards so everyone can access information.
  • Consistency: Design, navigation, and content should be uniform across all UT Tyler web properties.

Centralized Responsibilities

Marketing & Communications

The UT Tyler web team manages the website and associated sites, including the Content Management System (CMS). All software, plug-ins, scripts, and content must be reviewed and approved by the web team before implementation.

Support services include:

  • Training for the website.
  • Edits to existing pages
  • Strategy and development for new pages/sections
  • Assistance with archiving, deleting, or redirecting content
  • Accessibility support
  • Custom photography/videography for web use

To request support, use the marketing request form.

Decentralized Responsibilities

Colleges, departments, and offices are responsible for maintaining their web content. Each unit should designate two full-time, benefit-earning employees as web editors. Student workers may assist but must be supervised by two full-time staff.

CMS Access, Training, and Publishing Workflow

  • Training:
    The UT Tyler Marketing & Communications team provides comprehensive training for all CMS users. Training covers web accessibility, content management, branding, and best practices for web publishing. Ongoing support and refresher sessions are available to ensure editors remain current with standards and tools.

  • Submission and Publishing:
    CMS users are empowered to create and submit content for review, but do not have publishing rights. All content must be submitted through the CMS workflow and will be reviewed by the Marketing & Communications web team for compliance with university standards, accessibility, and branding before being published to the live site. This ensures consistency, quality, and legal compliance across all UT Tyler web properties.  This includes web content, documents, and images for the UT Tyler domains.

PDF and Document Guidelines

  • Primary Content:
    The main content of UT Tyler websites should be presented on web pages, not as PDFs or other documents. Web pages are preferred because they are searchable, accessible to all users (including those with disabilities), and can be easily updated and maintained. PDFs are not easy to maintain and rarely accessible. If there is an error on a PDF such as a broken link, or outdated content, the web team is unable to remediate the issue. However, if the content is first placed on a web page, that can be easily updated, while the PDF can serve as the secondary form of information.

  • Secondary Use of PDFs:
    PDFs may be provided as secondary resources for users who need printable versions of information. However, all essential information must be available on the web page itself. Before submitting a PDF, ensure it is accessible (e.g., tagged for screen readers) and approved by the Marketing & Communications web team. The web team will not check PDFs for accessibility, that is the responsibility of the content creator. We will send back PDFs with broken links or PDFs that have been flagged as inaccessible by our site tools.

    We will not post documents, spreadsheets, nor Powerpoints online. 

Content Review Cycles

Content owners must review and update web pages at least annually. 

Photography/Video

Provide alt text for images; all videos must be captioned and ADA-compliant. Images should not have text on them. 

Duplicate Content

Do not duplicate content from other UT Tyler platforms. Link to authoritative sources instead.

Sites Outside the CMS

Creating external websites for university business is not allowed.  If you have a business need for a domain outside of the university domain (for example: requirements for a grant), please contact Laura Waits prior to kick off. The Web team must have access to any sites created outside of the main university domain.

Domain and Subdomains

Subdomains and vanity URLs require approval from Marketing & Communications. Request via the marketing form.

Related Standards and Policies