Did You Know Archives - University Blog Service

November 29, 2018, Filed Under: Did You Know, Plugin Documentation

Wave of the Future: Google Analytics

First published on January 28, 2015. Updated on November 29, 2018.

This post will walk you through getting your site up with Google Analytics and properly configured. Let’s get started!

Before beginning, please be sure to review the best practices policy for the use of analytics on campus. Ensure that you have the following before beginning to configure your blog site:

• Site administrator credentials for a University Blog Service blog
• An email address that is not hosted on UTMail

First, create a Google Account. This can be your own personal Gmail/Google account if you have one. For departmental blogs or sites with multiple administrators, we do strongly recommend that a new Google Account be created for the group and that the credentials be shared in Stache with fellow administrators.

Next, log into the Google Analytics page, http://www.google.com/analytics/web, using the blog’s Google Account.

• Click “Sign Up”

• Fill out the New Account details using your blog information

• And select “Get tracking ID”

Next log into the Dashboard for your WordPress blog site, then:

• Click on “Plugins” in the left hand menu.
• Look for a plugin named “Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights.”
• Click on the “Activate” link under it.

The Dashboard will refresh once the plugin had been successfully activated. At this point the plugin will need to be configured to follow the best practices for Google Analytics use on campus.

• While still in Plugins, find the Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights you just activated and click on Settings.

• Click “Authenticate with your Google account” and provide the email used to create your google analytics profile, then click “Allow” to allow the plugin to access your Google account.

• Select your site from the “Pick a Profile” dropdown and click “Complete Connection”.

• You will get a message that it is finishing up and you will be taken back to your site. You will be on a page called Insights.

• Scroll down and click “Save Changes”.

That’s it! You’re done! After a short period of time Google Analytics will begin to collect information and you can view your Analytics from your Google Account. If you should have any questions, please send an email to help@sites.utexas.edu

NOTE: On August 9, 2018 Google Analytics for WordPress changed ownership from Yoast to MonsterInsights. This article has been updated to reflect this change.

If you already had Google Analytics activated on your site, please follow these instructions to re-authenticate:

Log in to your site dashboard
Open the left hand menu item, “Insights” (formerly called “Analytics”)
Follow the instructions to re-authenticate with Google Analytics

Resources from the plugin Developer:

September 27, 2018, Filed Under: Did You Know

Improve Contrast Issues with Twitter Timeline Embeds

We recently had a user write in who wanted to share a tip about how to handle a common accessibility problem when embedding Twitter: Minimum Color Contrast.

I have been working to increase our accessibility scores and was able to improve the Twitter color contrast on our other sites by visiting the “set customization options” at https://publish.twitter.com/# where you can choose a higher contrast color for links.

I also shared instructions with all the Twitter content creators on how-to make images accessible,

https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/picture-descriptions

–Sarah Snow, COLA

The good news is that you can do this on UBS using WordPress oEmbeds!

oEmbeds are a set of powerful features that allow you to integrates 3rd party sources into your site without the need for a plugin. One such oEmbed for Twitter which allows you to embed Tweets, profiles, lists, collections, likes, or Moments. In this post, we’ll look on how to embed Twitter into your pages, posts, and widgets. Then we’ll look into different approaches to how to check for color contrast.

Step one: Which Twitter Account do you want to use?

For this demonstration, we are using the UT Austin Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/UTAustin

Step two: Where do you want to embed it?

Create or edit a post or page and ensure that the editor is in the “Visual” mode. Then paste the Twitter URL onto a line all by itself.

You’ll know it’s working because the Twitter feed will “pop” in automatically.

Step three: Publish!

Done!

Now, how do you address color contrast issues that come up?

Step one: Grab your embed code from Twitter

Visit the Twitter Publishing page
Enter your Twitter feed URL into the field titled “What would you like to embed?”. In our example, we are using – https://twitter.com/UTAustin
Click the right-pointing “Next” arrow
Select the display option that you want

Step two: Addressing the Color Contrast Issue

This is the tricky part as you’ll need to know what color scheme you’re using, and trying a few things to determine what works with your design AND is color accessible. Twitter gives you the option of light and dark backgrounds, in addition to the option to to enter your own color codes for links. There are a number of tools out there to help with this decision. One tool that I like is contrast ratio.

Step three: Embedding

This will be a little different from the steps that we outlined previously as we won’t rely on the Twitter oEmbed.

Once you have selected your color codes on the Twitter Publishing page, click on “Update”.
You’ll be prompted with an embed code. Copy this embed code and go back to the page or post where you are posting your Twitter feed.
Be sure you’re in “Visual” mode in the editor and paste that code.
Click Publish
Once you publish you’ll be able to view your embed just like when using oEmbeds!

Accessibility is a large and encompassing topic that covers a large range of issues but taking it one step at a time can take you a long way in ensuring your website is accessible!

Here are some additional resources to help you as you learn more:

Color Contrast, Beyond the Basics

Twitter Accessibility

Tweets by TwitterA11y

May 25, 2017, Filed Under: Did You Know, News, Themes

UT WordPress Theme Now Available

Today we make available on the University Blog Service UT WordPress Theme. Site Administrators can activate the theme in their dashboards.

What is UT WordPress Theme?

UT WordPress Theme is based on the Genesis Framework and is bundled with branded CSS, images, and other web resources. Originally this was the theme available only through the CMS Hosting Platform, a service offered by ITS starting October 2016, in the WordPress for Texas upstream. We are making the UT WordPress Theme available on the University Blog Service in an effort to better support the UT Brand guidelines.

I want to use UT WordPress Theme on my site(s). What do I do?

If you are considering using UT WordPress Theme with your existing site, we recommend you evaluate UT Theme in the UBS Customer Acceptance Testing environment ( a.k.a., QUAL ) located at qual.sites.utexas.edu/<SITE URL> first. There you are free to make whatever changes you want without consequence to your live site.

Great! How do I get my site look like that?

What gives the theme’s design is the pages, posts, menu items, and widgets we preload into a site when it is created. We refer to this as “default content”. This is great for new sites created on UBS. Site administrators can make minimal changes to their new sites and see how we do design internally. However, existing sites will not have this content immediately available to them. This is to avoid corrupting the site’s existing content and configuration.

UT Theme relies on widgets for a number of elements of the overall design; mainly the footer and sidebars. We also recommend the following changes to achieve that look and feel;

Check out how to create the footer areas using Widgets
How to set up the Navigation Menu
What the default settings for widgets and supporting plugins

You can find specifics about how to implement elements of UT WordPress Theme’s design in this Service Now knowledge article.

What About the UT Responsive Themes?

UT Responsive themes will remain on the service.

My New Site Looks Funny After Switching Away. What Gives?

WordPress Themes rely on sidebars for their function and design. UT WordPress theme is no different. Often times two different themes will use the same name for sidebars. When this happens, themes will pack their widgets into the same sidebar and set whatever widget there as “Inactive”. As UT WordPress Theme uses widgets heavily, this can be impactful if a number of themes are being evaluated for a site. We recommend referring to the theme implementation article to overcome this issue.