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CPF-BC & Yukon
Chapter Website Guidelines
The purpose of this page is to establish some basic guidelines for CPF-BC & Yukon Chapters
setting up a website. As the chapter is using the CPF-BC & Yukon domain name we need to
insure that the website maintains a professional look and feel and at the same
time is easy for users to navigate and find the information that they are looking
for.
The guidelines below will help you keep a consistent look and feel throughout the
entire site. Every webpage in your chapter website must contain the following
elements or adhere to the guidelines below:
- The same background color and/or image. Using the same as the CPF-BC & Yukon website
is strongly encouraged. For non-framed pages the blue side column and POTL combined
image is: http://www.cpf.bc.ca/Images/cpfmenupotl.gif. For framed pages the blue
side column is: http://www.cpf.bc.ca/Images/SideLogo.gif and the background POTL
image is: http://www.cpf.bc.ca/Images/YBckLogo.gif. CPF-BC & Yukon website background color
is: #F7F7C6. The animated POTL can be found at:
http://www.cpf.bc.ca/Images/TProud_Anim.gif.
- The CPF Chapter logo at the top of every page always in the same place (left,
right or centered).
- A consistent means of webpage navigation. Using the left column with a list
of your webpages as the CPF-BC & Yukon website does is strongly recommended. Provide a site
index or site map, this page has links to all pages in the site. The site map is a
simple text-only listing of how the website is organized.
- The bottom of every page must have the copyright and All rights reserved notice
(e.g. Copyright © 2000-2001 Canadian Parents for French - Chaptername Chapter. All
rights reserved.). It is also recommended to have when the page was last modified
and an email address or contact information if problems or questions need answering.
- Keep headers, footers, content, etc. consistent. Use the same colors, fonts,
sizing, alignment, etc. on all pages for the same elements.
Use of a Cascading Style Sheet is strongly encouraged. The CPF-BC &
Yukon chapter stylesheet can be found at http://www.chapter-info.cpf.bc.ca/html_files/Websites/pdf_files/stylesheet.css
(validated for CSS2 compliance)
and can be used.
- Every website page must have its own title and unique URL. If you are using
frames, please ensure that each webpage has its own title and URL. Users may want
to bookmark a certain page of information on your site, if you do not have unique
URLs for each page, every time the user goes to the bookmark, they will be taken to
the home page and have to navigate to the page they really wanted. This is very
frustrating for a user.
- The convention on the web is that all links are underlined and visited links
are one color and non-visited links another. Use this convention as users can get
very confused when links no longer have their underlining or they cant tell where
they have been or not yet visited. Exception to this is for the navigation menu, its
colors can stay the same for visited or non-visited links, but they should still be
underlined.
- Give all images a alternate text so users that have turned images off will still
have an idea what the image is (See the POTL logo above).
- Design your site to work with all major browsers and versions of the browsers. If you are using frames, remember
that there are a large number of people who have browsers that do not support frames,
for example users with AOL browsers, browsers for disabled people or users who
have turned frames
off in their browser. Therefore, you will need an alternate means for these people to
access your information and navigate your site. Test your website under a number
of browsers, browser versions with features like Javascript, CSS, frames enabled and disabled.
- Design your site to work with different monitor
resolutions and window sizes. Use relative sizes rather than
absolute sizing (e.g. on a table width=90% rather than width=680). Using
percentages allows the table to resize depending upon the monitor size or the window
size.
- Be careful with your use of Javascript and cookies, your pages must still work
if Javascript and cookies have been turned off or are not supported. Test for these
cases.
- Limit your use of animation/flashing images, and plug-ins. This are neat but
get very tiring for the user after a very short time. People coming to CPF websites
are looking for information not the newest flashy things.
- You must get permission to use peoples pictures on your website, before using
them.
- Make sure that your site is thoroughly tested before content is added to the
general viewing public. There is nothing worse than going to a website that does not
work, link are bad, or nothing happens when you click a link. Start small, get a page
or two working and build from there. A good idea is to set up a working directory and
a test directory for your website. Have the working directory the thoroughly tested
version that the general public accesses and the test directory for you to use while
testing new content. Once you are confident that the tested page is ready then promote
it to the working directory.
- Information that is already on the CPF National and
CPF-BC & Yukon website should not
be duplicated, instead a link to the appropriate page should be used. This can be
done with a link in your content or in your menu selection. (An example of linking
CPF-BC & Yukon pages in your menu selection can be found on the CPF Burnaby Chapter website at:
www.burnaby.cpf.bc.ca)
- The information on your Chapter website should be specific to your chapter. If
you come across information that you feel would be valuable to more than just your
chapter, please send the information to the CPF-BC & Yukon website coordinator to put on the
CPF-BC & Yukon website.
To deviate from these guidelines you need to get the permission of the CPF-BC & Yukon
Website Coordinator. To receive permission email the Website Coordinator with
an explanation of what you want to do and how & why you need to deviate from the
guidelines.
This document
is available in Adobe PDF format .
The information on this page was late updated: October 24, 2002.
This page was last modified October 24, 2002.
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