All posts by Melissa Kinney

T4

Web content styling

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Did you know that our web team has formatted the UMass Dartmouth website for the best user experience possible?  In addition to readability and visual aesthetic, the web team considers those with accessibility issues when designing all aspects of the website.  This allows you, our content contributors, to focus on gathering and posting great content for your readers!

A few tips when entering in content for your site visitors:

  • Do not use extra returns for additional spacing between lines and/or paragraphs. Th website typography is coded for consistent spacing to ensure optimal legibility and consistency across all university pages.
  • Please limit the use of italics to names of books, films, journals, etc., as too many italicized words can often be difficult to read.
  • Separate content through the use of headings.  This is more accessible and more search-engine friendly, which helps more visitors finds your site!
  • When adding images, please use the Blue “Select Media” button, rather than inserting it into the html editor.  Selecting images through the Media library in this manner allows the images on the University’s site to be responsive, no matter what size screen our viewer uses (where inserting from the html editor can cause formatting issues).

Add media using the blue "Add media" button

  • Additionally, please try to refrain from using images-as-text to convey information.  For our users that need screen-readers, these images aren’t accessible, and these users will not be able to receive that information.  To read more on that subject, you can go to our guide on Images Best Practices and see the “text-as-image” accordion .

For additional UMassD formatting tips and resources, you can refer to the University Marketing’s Guide to Web Writing, and our T4 User Guide, specifically our Editing & Saving Content section.

Note: Please keep in mind that the HTML editor will display typography different from the published site.  You can preview your page before publishing to see how it will look on the live site. See previewing your content in the editing content guide.
Thank you for helping keep our site updated and user-friendly!!
T4

The Importance of Link Checking Your Website

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If you are using Terminalfour (T4), there is a good chance you are developing or maintaining content for a page or set of pages for the university’s site.  The goal is typically to keep your readers on your site for as long as possible; maybe you have a conversion goal, such as having your visitors make a deposit, to enroll into an event, or apply to a program.  While creating your content, hyperlinks guide your visitors to additional references and information to supplement their reading – but what happens when these links break?  Some of even the biggest sites have broken links – the average number of broken links on any given site is 2.4% – but given their negative implications, we want to try to minimize them as much as possible.

What is a broken link?

A broken link is hyperlink that, when clicked, brings the visitor to an empty or non-existent webpage, resulting in a 404 error message.  Here at UMass Dartmouth, we use a form of internal linking called section links to help prevent broken links between pages with the UMass Dartmouth site.  We have less control over links to external sites that are owned by other individuals or organizations.

What’s the problem with broken links?

There are several issues with how broken links can affect your site, some more serious than others.

  • Broken links can affect your site’s SEO – or Search Engine Optimization. SEO is how well a site performs in a search engine result.  Search engines like Google will rank your site poorly if you have many broken links, along with many other factors.  In other words, people can’t find you!
  • Reduces your site’s credibility and can look unprofessional
  • They can impact conversions – if the user can’t access the link, they can’t complete your goal.
  • People are less trusting of sites seem like they have been abandoned
  • It’s just plain annoying to click a link that goes nowhere!

Why do broken links happen?

  • the source URL was entered into the content management system (CMS) incorrectly
  • the source URL was changed or moved
  • the source page or picture was deleted
  • the content is now protected and can’t be accessed

**Although not technically a “broken” link, domain name changes are still a common occurrence, and as a result, external links should be checked frequently.  Domain names are often sold and the link that you once thought was going to one place could now link to completely different content.

What can I do?

  • Use section links  whenever linking to internal pages within UMass Dartmouth’s site
  • properly link to the media library using the Insert from media icon for PDFS
  • properly insert images using the blue “Select media” button
  • only link to external sources when they are credible or absolutely necessary
  • check for broken links – either manually, if you have a small site with a few links, or using the Broken Link checker in T4
    1. Navigate to the Main Menu in T4 on the left hand side
    2. Go to  Measure > Quality Control> Broken Links

Main navigation in T4 to get to Broken links

    1. Search for the site/page(s) you’d like to check for broken links

Use the filter to find your site

References

Development, Directory, New features, T4

Improved Online Directory Search

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In an ever-persistent effort to enhance the website experience for the end user, similar changes that had applied to the Program and Course searches have also now been applied to the Online Directory as well.

Online directory search
Online directory search before the edits

Previously, one’s only options were to search by a name or department and click the corresponding “Search” button.  Now, users are provided a field where they can enter data, or they can select from a number of filters.  Either choice will return results below immediately.  The improved search function and additional filters  is providing higher volume of expected results.

New directory upon page open
New directory with the filters expanded
Development, New features

Improved Program Search

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Significant improvements have been made to the university’s program searches in the last month.  Using an updated module, the search can now filter more quickly and efficiently and with more filter options than previously.  In addition to the search within ALL programs, we currently have searches isolated to Undergraduate programs and STEM programs.

Program search before the redesign
Program search before the redesign
Program search after the redesign
Program search after the redesign
CRM and Slate, T4

Terminalfour User Guide

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Even with proper training, individuals can still get stuck when editing their University websites.  It is for this reason that the web department has created an online user guide for Terminalfour (T4), our web content management system, complete with the most commonly asked questions and tasks our users come across.

Some of the many subjects addressed include:

Home page of T4 user guide
The online user guide is a useful resource for answering your T4 questions
Uncategorized

Update: Custom Profile Additions

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Within just a few hours of UMassD Announce mentioning the addition of pronouns to the University’s directory profiles, we received 24 new requests – while all of these requests utilized the new “pronouns” field, 18 of them were submitted solely to include their pronouns on their profile. Considering that we average 13 custom profile requests per month, it seems that this addition has been well-received.