Web design standards

All websites in the College of Letters & Science should adhere to these minimum guidelines and standards.

Layout

• Use a flexible layout rather than basing your design on a specific browser window size. Your users will view your site on a wide variety of devices, including large and small monitors, PDAs, and cellphones. A flexible design will enable more visitors to access your web site successfully.
• Allow for different text sizes. Users may have default text sizes which are much smaller or larger than yours. Check that your layout is usable at a variety of sizes, and that you've made your text resizable.

Code

• Write clean, valid HTML code. Valid code helps your site display consistently on different browsers and operating systems. You can check your pages using an online service such as the W3C's HTML validator.
• Use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to control your fonts and colors.
• Consider using CSS to define your layout.
• Your CSS needs checking too - the W3C also has a CSS validator.

Images

• Avoid using images for textual content such as navigation or form buttons.
• If your image does include text, make sure it is readable.
• Use an image format that is appropriate to the image content. Photographic images should be JPEG; icons, line art, charts, and other images should be GIF or PNG.

Media

• Always provide a link to download the appropriate plugin if your media requires one.
• Provide a text version such as a transcript or descriptive narration of any media that has significant sound or visual components.

Accessibility

• All UC Berkeley sites should be accessible to users with disabilities. See our web accessibility guidelines for more information.