Site Rules

The following requirements for appearance and content apply to all pages containing School content. Use of a standard design and navigation route as specified in these rules is important so that any page will be recognisable as part of the School site, even when entered directly from a link elsewhere. Individuals' personal home pages are not required to follow these rules but are encouraged to do so to maintain an overall consistency and identity for the entire School of Geosciences site.

1. Header area

The Main Header must always appear. This is the School's main brand and is essential for external recognition and identity.

The Header always includes:

• College of Science and Engineering bar at the top
• University crest at left
• blue background bar with 'School of GeoSciences' as prominent text
• a background image on the right hand side of the header bar; the image may be changed

An appropriate text sub-heading can be added to the Header below School of Geosciences if desired. Try to avoid this text wrapping i.e. keep it short.

2. Navigation tools

Navigation must be consistent throughout the site. This makes browsing much easier, quicker and more rewarding for visitors.

• The [login] and [breadcrumbs] bar must always appear (this is the grey bar that appears below the main header)
• The left hand navigation (Contents) menu must appear on all pages down to Level 3 of the site (see attached site structure). Below this, the navigation menu may be omitted if desired, to allow full-width body text (e.g. if the page is likely to be printed frequently).

3. Body area

Consistent appearance of the body area helps the user to feel at home and assists in creating a School and site identity.

• The font, text colour and background colour should not be changed.
• In general, page headings should use Heading 3 and subheadings Heading 4. If you need another Heading 3, consider creating a new page for that content.

4. Site information and search

The grey footer bar, containing page ownership, should always appear.

5. Description and keywords

All pages should include appropriate description and keywords (editable under Metadata) to aid indexing by search engines.

Anne Payne (School Administrator), on behalf of the School Web Editorial Committee, December 2004.

Footnote: There may be occasional cases where the left hand menu may be omitted at higher levels. These would need the approval of the editorial committee.