Subject to change, the following guidance for building a Drupal 7 website, that the College of Fine Arts (COFA) Web team will maintain, is provided. We will be adding details, instructions, templates and examples regularly. It is the contractor’s responsibility to check back for updates.
If you wish to discuss the incorporation of different modules, features or functionality please email us at cofawebmaster@austin.utexas.edu.
College of Fine Arts Web team will provide:
- Guidelines and instructions for the user interface components and workflow used by site administrators, content editors and contributors (collectively referred to as content owners).
- A template for an iCal and a XML feed of events.
- A site building specifications (hereafter referred to as Build Spec) Excel document using this Excel template (98KB). Review this article about the Build Spec document for more information. The template is not complete and is in progress but should help ensure consistent use of terms, labels, machine names and other data model items.
- A list of approved modules, libraries and themes.
The website produced by the Drupal developers will:
- Be built in the most current version of Drupal 7.
- Use only approved modules and libraries unless otherwise requested in writing from the College of Fine Arts Web team in advance.
- Base the public facing theme on Zen.
- Zen now uses ARIA landmarks in templates http://webaim.org/techniques/aria/. Please take advantage of these elements and attributes.
- Use Seven for the site administrator theme. Consider using a subtheme of the Seven theme to clean up the user interface content administrators have to use.
- All modules and Drupal core must be up-to-date on the day of delivery to the College of Fine Arts Web team.
- Adhere to the user interface components and workflow guidelines and instructions provided for content owners unless otherwise requested in writing from the College of Fine Arts Web team in advance.
- Include an iCal and a XML feed of events using the provided templates.
- Provide a Build Spec document based on the provided Excel template (98KB).
- Adhere to university, college and department branding style guides and other guidelines such as the university Writer’s Style Guide.
- Meet the requirements of the university’s Web Accessibility Policy. We recommend attempting to meet level AAA conformance of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). It is highly recommended that all contractors verify their understanding of the “Access by Individuals with Disabilities” clause in the university’s Purchasing Terms and Conditions.
- Adhere to all other requirements and policies of the university, college and department.
- We are beginning to use basic microdata, http://schema.org and would like the templates built by contractors to include relevant microdata.
The Drupal developers will conduct the following quality assurance and training tasks. Results must be shared with the College of Fine Arts Web team:
- Common industry testing for optimization, validation, browsers, operating systems, devices, search engine optimization, security, accessibility and functionality.
- On PC running a mutually agreed upon version of Windows: Google Chrome 26.0, IE 8, 9 and 10. Also, make best efforts to have the site look acceptable on IE7.
- On Mac running a mutually agreed version of OSX: Safari 5.0
- On IOS: Safari running on a mutually agreed version of IOS on one mutually agreed upon iPhone version and one iPad version
- On Android devices: Chrome running a mutually agreed version of Android 4.x tested on up to 2 mutually agreed upon devices.
- Validation should be against the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards. Reports from the applicable W3C validators should be shared with the College of Fine Arts Web team.
- The optimization testing processes is at the discretion of the contractor. The College of Fine Arts Web team optimization goal for the site is to pass Google’s Page Speed Insights with a score of 85 or above. The contractor should test the site to anticipate that the server hosting the final site will perform quickly and focus their optimization on the HTML structure of a page, and its use of external resources such as images, JavaScript, and CSS.
- Search Engine Optimization and functionality testing are at the discretion of the contractor.
- Use Drupal’s Security Review module and best practices to ensure the security of the site before delivery. Use of the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) testing guide is encouraged. Questions about specific security requirements or requests for exceptions should be directed to the university Information Security Office (ISO). The ISO will perform final testing.
- Web AIM’s accessibility evaluation tool and color contrast tools are recommended for preparing the site for the accessibility test that the university will conduct.
- Pass an automated and manual security scan performed by the university. When the site is ready on a staging server send an email to security@utexas.edu asking for an assessment.
- Pass an automated accessibility scan performed by the university. When the site is ready on a staging server send an email to cofawebmaster@austin.utexas.edu asking for an assessment. The scan is performed by WorldSpace. Passing this scan doesn’t mean that the site has met all accessibility requirements.
- Perform usability tests to demonstrate successful completion of the public user interface.
- Demonstrate and train on any specifications where pre-approval for special treatment was granted.
- Demonstrate any changes or additions to the site building specifications document.
- Present an update to the College of Fine Arts Web team at least once before the completion of each major phase of the project: discovery, design and build, and will allow the opportunity for the College of Fine Arts Web team to provide feedback.
Site Delivery and Launch
- The College of Fine Arts Web team may require up to three weeks to launch the site after the files are delivered.
Reporting and Communicating
The contractor will present an update to the College of Fine Arts Web team at least once before the completion of each major phase of the project: discovery, design and build, and will allow the opportunity for the College of Fine Arts Web team to provide feedback.
To request any customizations, special modules, additions, deletions or edits to the user interface guidelines instructions or templates, etc. provided by the College of Fine Arts Web team the contractor will contact the College of Fine Arts Web team in writing by emailing, cofawebteam@austin.utexas.edu.
The College of Fine Arts Web team will be available within 48 hours to review requests and respond to inquiries.
Best efforts to communicate issues, in a timely manner, must be made by all parties.
Other
The sites will be hosted on UT campus servers, UT Web.
Please provide the theme folder for the site to the COFA Web team and it will incorporate into a multisite Drupal 7 installation.
University patrons are still frequently using Internet Explorer 7 and Safari 5. Content should gracefully degrade for display on these browsers. The university lists general expectations for visitors browsers.
Influences
Karen McGrane’s presentation Adapting Ourselves to Adaptive Content, http://vimeo.com/64038113. We’re particularly interested in the best practices discussed on http://webaim.org/ and http://meetcontent.com/