This is a summary of points to consider as you author a site in CMS, and to review during the go-live process.
Note: If your site is to be located at www.ndsu.edu/yoursite, the address to enter in your browser address bar for all previews mentioned below will be workspaces.ndsu.edu/yoursite. You must update the yoursite URL segment appropriately.
NDSU CMS site go-live checklist
Critical priority
- Publish site pages/content
- Confirm content was published
- Click the Workspaces module
- Visually confirm no draft versions are listed for contents you want to be available to visitors
- If present, publish any remaining drafts you want site visitors to see
Essential priority
- Verify the home page at workspaces.ndsu.edu/yoursite has content. This page must not be blank!
- Verify the home page shortcut exists and takes visitors to the home page when clicked.
This is a large, dark green link at the top of the navigation menu. When clicked, it should take visitors to your home page and it should remain green after it is clicked - Verify footer contents contain site information, per University Relations guidelines - how to update footer contents
- Verify the contact page exists and has been updated with relevant content. Confirm by visiting workspaces.ndsu.edu/yoursite/contact/
- Verify the search page exists and the NDSU Search plugin has not been removed. Confirm by visiting workspaces.ndsu.edu/yoursite/search/
- Verify spelling and grammar errors have been removed
- Verify there are no links to the organization's old Web site--these will no longer work after go-live.
Click all links in the site to confirm the old site does not appear
Recommended priority
- Verify headings have been used only as page/document headings, not for "making text green" or arbitrarily changing text size of the page -- see accessibility of headings
- Verify content has been organized to fit the needs of visitors and uses their vocabulary, not the needs and vocabulary of the organization/site authors
- Verify that no blank pages exist in the site (these are pages without any content). Blank pages confuse visitors
- Verify the home page does not contain only "Welcome to our site ... " Instead, it contains important, relevant content that you will keep up-to-date
- View pages with different Web browser widths. It is possible that pasted-in text was designed with line-breaks that "look right" in your default browser size, but if the window is re-sized larger/smaller, the text no longer flows as expected. Images might also take on a different character in larger/smaller browser windows
- View pages with different text sizes (use the text size buttons
) - Shorten page titles, removing unnecessary text, and/or provide "Speaking URL segments" to keep URLs short -- how to shorten URLs
Above and beyond
If you want to go above and beyond, consider using other on-line resources to improve the site, for example
