Bellevue College

Web Publishing Guide

Standards: Rules of the Road

Web Standards are the rules of the road for college website managers and application developers.

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Technical Requirements

Technical requirements for BCC web pages have been established to ensure that all site visitors to any BCC website will have access to all materials and information without obstacles, and that a consistent user experience will be enjoyed wherever the user moves within the BCC site.

  1. Browser Supportability
    1. All official websites must comply with minimum browser supportability standards. Specifically, all websites should be tested and be fully functional through the following commonly used Internet browsers:
      1. Firefox 1.5 and newer
      2. Internet Explorer 6 and newer (Windows only)
      3. Netscape 7 and newer
      4. Safari 1 and newer (Macintosh only)
    2. It is strongly recommended that all websites be tested with other browsers such as:
      1. Opera
      2. IE 5.5 (Windows only)
      3. IE 5.0  (Windows only)
      4. Firefox 1
      5. Netscape 6
  2. Default Page File Names
    1. The home page of all college websites must use one of BCC’s supported default file names for the home page to load correctly without specifying a file name. If a web page does not use one of these supported file names on the default page, and no specific file name is specified in the web address, the website visitor will receive a "Directory Listing Denied" error when they attempt to load the web page.
    2. The supported default file names are the following:
      1. default.asp
      2. default.aspx
      3. default.htm
      4. default.html
      5. index.htm
      6. index.html
  3. Graphics and Multimedia
    1. Graphics and multimedia, such as audio and video, can add great value to websites. Graphics, audio and video content must be compressed before posting on a website. 
    2. Graphics
      1. All graphics must be compressed into a GIF or JPG format. The PNG format is acceptable, but must be tested on all supported browsers to make sure graphics appear correctly.
      2. All graphics must be displayed at their actual pixel size on websites.
      3. All graphics displayed on web pages must have alternative text attributes.
    3. Multimedia
      1. Multimedia must be compressed to a format that is appropriate for the audience accessing it.
      2. All multimedia must be accompanied by text descriptions.
      3. All audio must be accompanied by transcripts.
      4. Text descriptions of time-sensitive multimedia presentations, such as video must be synchronized to the presentation.
      5. A link to the plug-in or applet required for experiencing the multimedia presentation must be provided.
  4. Internet Markup Language
    1. BCC adheres to using Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (XHTML) 1.0 for creating new web-based services including web-based applications and websites. Alternately, Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) 4.01 may be used depending on business needs, but is not recommended for new web-based applications.
    2. The language declaration should be stated on the top of all web pages using the Document Type Declaration (DOCTYPE).
      1. Example of DOCTYPE for XHTML 1.0:

        <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"\ "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
      2. Example of DOCTYPE for HTML 4.01:

        <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">