Web Development Workflow Checklist

Planning

Have you done a complete consultation with your client?
Does the project have a clear purpose? Have your site's objectives been determined?
What technology will the site employ? Have you provided for any special server needs, scripting support, personnel, etc.?
Have you established a timeline for the completion of your site, including project milestones where necessary?
Have you defined your target audience for this site and made accommodations for their needs (page translation, tone of speech, etc.)?
Does the site have benchmarks/goals to help evaluate its success (eg, pageviews as determined in Google Analytics)?
Have you identified key tasks you want to be sure that users can perform with ease on your site (and thus structured your site accordingly)?
Have you done a competitive assessment of your site (analyzing the pros/cons of other comparable university sites)?
In the case of a redesign, have you identified areas for improvement within your current site architecture/content?
Have you determined your site's layout (eg, center, fixed width, 2 columns)?
Does your layout evoke a clean, open style?
Have you developed site drafts/sketches/mockups using your chosen layout (eg, using Photoshop or by hand)?
Have you gathered the copy for you site?
Have you determined how you want visitors to navigate within your site (drop-down menus, tree node menus, etc.)?
Has your copy been broken down into appropriate categories to be used in the site's navigation?

Validation/Code Quality

Does the site use a correct Doctype?
Does the site use a Character set?
Does the site use Valid (X)HTML? (http://validator.w3.org/)
Does the site use Valid CSS? (http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/)
Is the code well structured?
If necessary, have you taken steps to ensure the security of your web site/pages (eg, against SQL injection)?
Does the site have any broken links?
How does the site perform in terms of speed/page size?
Have you used heading tags correctly?
Does the site have JavaScript errors?
Have you utilized page specific meta tags and titles?
Does the site use CSS for all presentation components (fonts, color, padding, borders, etc.)?
Have you ensured that you are capturing analytics for your site (eg, including the necessary JavaScript for Google Analytics)?

Accessibility for Users

Do you use "alt" tags for all descriptive images?
Are your links descriptive (no click here or other links that are hard to understand out of context)?
Does the site use relative units rather than absolute units for text size?
Do any aspects of the layout break if font size is increased?
Does the site use visible skip menus?
Does the site use accessible forms? Do your forms allow for easy completion and submission (Tab key should flow sequentially through form and all fields and boxes should be properly labeled)?
Does the site use accessible tables?
Is there sufficient color brightness/contrast between background and text?
Is color alone used for critical information?
Are image maps “client- side” rather than “server- side”?
Are equivalent alternatives for content rich (informative vs. decorative) multimedia presentations provided? Are videos and/or audio soundtracks captioned and/or transcribed?
Does your site/page pass accessibility checkers (eg, http://checker.atrc.utoronto.ca/ or http://fae.cita.uiuc.edu/?

Accessibility for Devices

Does the site work acceptably across modern and older browsers?
Is the content accessible with CSS switched off or not supported?
Is the content accessible with images switched off or not supported?
Does the site work in text browsers such as Lynx?
Is the site clean and presentable when printed?
Does the site work well in hand held devices?
Does the site function when scripting is turned off (eg, JavaScript)?
Does the site work well in a range of browser window sizes?

Usability

Is there a clear visual hierarchy?
Are heading levels easy to distinguish (h1, h2, h3)?
Is the site's navigation easy to understand?
Is the site's navigation consistent?
Does the site use consistent and appropriate language?
For large sites, is there a search tool?
Is there a link to the home page on every page in the site?
Are links underlined or otherwise easily distinguishable from surrounding text?
Are visited links clearly defined?
Does the site have a meaningful and helpful 404 error page that works from any depth in the site?
Is formatting consistent from page to page, so that university branding/department branding is readily apparent?
Have you provided visual cues to users before you link to content such as PDFs, Word docs, e-mail addresses, etc?

University Standards

Have you used a correct web version of the university logo?
Does the logo appear prominently on your pages (located within the top 200 pixels of the page)?
The logo must be linked to the University’s home page (http://welcome.colostate.edu).
Does your site predominantly use Colorado State University’s official colors (dark green and gold)?
Does your site include required links to our Equal opportunity statement (http://welcome.colostate.edu/info-equalop.aspx)?
Our Disclaimer statement (http://welcome.colostate.edu/info-disclaimer.aspx)?
Our Privacy policy (http://welcome.colostate.edu/info-privacy.aspx)?
Our "Finding Information" or "Search" page (http://search.colostate.edu)?

Content

Have you provided contact information/transparency of ownership for the site and its content?
Does the site include the date that it was last modified?
Have you checked your spelling/grammar?
Can you content be scanned easily? Is it "chunked", using bullets, headings, subheadings wherever possible?
Have you checked that you've used tables appropriately (eg, when presenting data)

Typography

Are Minion and Swiss 721 used as the primary typefaces in design elements?. Garamond and Helvetica are acceptable alternate typefaces.
Do your design elements include strong, bold heads and/or "impact words" to convey marketing messages from the University brand?
Does your site's body text use a sans serif font (Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet MS, etc.). Are fonts clean and not ornate?

Images

Are your images optimised for the web and appropriate for the page's subject matter?
Does the site have a favicon?

Division of Student Affairs Web Standards/Guidelines: Home; Accessibility; Colors/Fonts; Guidelines; Logos; Recommendations; Requirements

Learning About Web Design: FAQs; Online Resources; Offline Resources

Scripts/Coding: About Scripts; Script Archive

Finding Information: Search this Site; CSU A-Z; Search CSU

Finding People: CSU Directories; Webmaster Directory

Templates: About Templates; 2 Columns, Fixed Width; 2 Columns, Variable Width; 3 Columns, Fixed Width; 3 Columns, Variable Width