Web Strategy and Development Blog

Celebrate Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) on May 19

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The world celebrates digital access and inclusion with Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) on the third Thursday of May every year. More than one billion people worldwide have disabilities and impairments. GAAD gets people talking, thinking and learning about digital access and inclusion.

Creating accessible digital content is a must at Missouri State University. We know it can be a lot to think about, so here are some tips to keep in mind. We’ve also included some ways to join in virtually.

Find a GAAD virtual event

#SpotlightAccessibility – Spread positivity around accessibility by highlighting a great feature or product and learn about what others are using.

People with disabilities say these issues come up most often.

  • Videos that are missing captions.
  • Motion, animations and cluttered pages.
  • Auto play videos and auto-advancing slideshows.
  • Walls of text (long paragraphs and large chunks of text).
  • Small font size
  • Zooming problems: sites frequently break when size is increased by user.
  • Low contrasts and image of text: scan of a page of text saved as PDF produces an image of text.
  • Bright color schemes: white backgrounds can lead to migraines.
  • Relying only on color: this has long been a no-no, but still prevalent.
  • Mouse-focused sites: not usable on touch screens and difficult for users with motor impairments.
  • Too small touch-targets: thhis is the reason Missouri State University’s 2019 web redesign is so spacious.
  • CAPTCHAS: Keep out a lot more than bots.

Here’s what you can do to make your content more accessible.

While some of these items are automatically handled by MSU’s web templates, you still have an impact on many of of these items.

  • Don’t create a wall of text. Keep paragraphs to 2-4 sentences.
    • Content styled as Intro format should be brief; one or two short sentences plus 1-3 bullets. Anything longer isn’t introductory content.
  • Use headings to make an outline of your content.
  • Avoid images of text. When necessary, the alt text should contain all text in the image.
  • Don’t use heading markup (e.g., h3, h4) to make an “important” statement; consider a Notice Block instead.
  • Don’t use bold or italics for an entire sentence.
  • Use meaningful text for links; avoid brief abstract terms like read more or click here.
  • For web addresses, write descriptive link text.

Make sure you’re following the style guide.

  • In time references, use figures with a.m. and p.m throughout. Omit :00.
    • Examples: Summer office hours are 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Telephone support is available 2:30-4 p.m. daily.
  • In email addresses, capitalize each word. Example: BoomerBear@MissouriState.edu.
  • Preferred capitalizations, spelling and usage:
    • Phone numbers: use dashes, not periods. Omit parentheses around the area code. 417-836-5000
    • Most words beginning with “non” or “post” should be formatted as one word with no hyphen (ex. noncredit, nondegree, nondegree-seeking, postbaccalaureate, postdoctoral, postdoctorate). Post-master’s should be hyphenated.
    • Email, not e-mail.
    • Use only one space between sentences. Do not use a space at the end of a paragraph or bulleted list item.
  • Common Bear terms:
    • Bear CLAW
    • Bear Line
    • BearWear
    • BearFare
    • BearMail
    • BearPass
    • Bear Park North (South)
    • BoomerMeals
    • Bear Breaks

Resources

Editorial Style Guide

Web Accessibility Clinic

Omni CMS Documentation

Omni CMS training available for migrated university websites

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Over 25% of university websites have now been migrated to the new Omni content management system.

Once your site has been successfully migrated, as content editor, you will be contacted and automatically enrolled in our Basic Omni CMS Training in Blackboard. This Blackboard training course has been split into 5 sections with a short quiz for each section.

After scoring 100% on all 5 section quizzes you need to submit a Training Completion Form, which will notify us for verification.

You will regain editor access to your site through Omni CMS once your training completion has been verified.

After training, drop by our Web Editor Open Lab, available every Friday (2-4 p.m.) in Cheek 100, to receive additional in-person support with Omni CMS. Our sandbox training area will also be available by request for those needing more hands-on training.

You may also find step-by-step guides to using Omni CMS within the TeamDynamix knowledge base.

In addition, you may visit Omni CMS Support online for training videos written specifically for content editors.

Questions?

Contact the Web Support Help Desk available 8 a.m.–5 p.m., Monday-Friday, excluding university holidays.

Martian attack repelled; content management system implementation proceeds

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Sometimes during a major system implementation, sample messages inadvertently make their way to a live website. Such was the case yesterday when an orphaned training session alert went live on ten websites. The following message was displayed.

Sample alert message indicating Martians were attacking

Attack successfully repelled

We are excited to report that the attack was successfully repelled with only minor scratches suffered by the web support team. Web Support Help Desk supervisor Brian Heaton stated “…it was a brief but ferocious attack; it’s a great day to be a Bear!”

Implementation of new CMS continues

Progress on implementation of the new CMS continues, with ten MSU Springfield websites already live and plans to go-live in December with 60+ West Plains websites. Websites published from the new CMS, Omni CMS, include Marketing and Communications, Class Schedule, Catalogs,  Guide to Services, Visitors Guide and Research.

The Web Strategy and Development team recently led the process to acquire a new content management system (CMS) for university websites. This means that all Web Press sites will have an entirely new and improved editor experience. The name of product is Omni CMS, offered by Modern Campus (formerly OmniUpdate). The Omni CMS platform was developed specifically for Higher Education and has many features that we will utilize.

Some of the many advantages this new system will bring, are:

  • Regular online training for editors and administrators.
  • Online knowledge base and other resources.
  • More seamless editing with a deep link feature allowing you to login directly from the live website page you want to edit.
  • WYSIWYG editor with drag and drop functionality.
  • A pre-publish accessibility checker within the system.
  • A cloud hosted platform.
  • A cost effective solution.

We are planning for website migrations to occur as quickly as possible, but will probably extend into summer 2022. When we are ready to migrate your site, we will reach out to editors and work together to complete site migration to the new Omni CMS platform. Prior to that, we will be connecting with various departments and units to help ensure websites are up-to-date. In the meantime, please remove old and outdated content as time permits, which will help streamline the process and result in a more pristine website after migration.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions at WebSupport@MissouriState.edu.

Recap: Accessibility according to actual people with disabilities

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This information is from a blog post that summarizes responses to a 2017 tweet by Safia Abdalla:

Tweet by Safia Abdalla @captainsafia.

Review the full post by Hampus Sethfors: Accessibility according to actual people with disabilities.

Biggest issues identified

  • Lack of captions
    • Primarily for video.
  • Motion, animations and cluttered pages
    • Includes auto play videos and auto-advancing slideshows.
  • Wall of text
    • Long paragraphs and large chunks of text.
  • Small font size
  • Zooming problems
    • Sites frequently break when size is increased by user.
  • Low contrasts and image of text
    • Scan of a page of text saved as PDF produces an image of text.
  • Bright color schemes
    • White background; can lead to migraines.
  • Relying only on color
    • Long been a no-no, but still prevalent.
  • Mouse-focused sites
    • Not usable on touch screens; difficult for users with motor impairments.
  • Too small touch-targets
    • This is the reason Missouri State University’s 2019 web redesign is so spacious.
  • CAPTCHAS
    • Keep out a lot more than bots.

What you can do

While some of these items are automatically handled by MSU’s 2019 web templates, you still have an impact on many of of these items.

  • Don’t create a wall of text. Keep paragraphs to 2-4 sentences.
    • Content styled as Intro format should be brief; one or two short sentences plus 1-3 bullets. Anything longer isn’t introductory content.
  • Use headings to make an outline of your content.
  • Avoid images of text. When necessary, the alt text should contain all text in the image.
  • Don’t use heading markup (e.g., h3, h4) to make an “important” statement; consider a Notice Block instead.
  • Don’t use bold or italics for an entire sentence.
  • Use meaningful text for links; avoid brief abstract terms like read more or click here.
  • For web addresses, write descriptive link text.

Make sure you’re following the style guide.

  • In time references, use figures with a.m. and p.m throughout. Omit :00.
    • Examples: Summer office hours are 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Telephone support is available 2:30-4 p.m. daily.
  • In email addresses, capitalize each word. Example: BoomerBear@MissouriState.edu.
  • Preferred capitalizations, spelling and usage:
    • Phone numbers: use dashes, not periods. Omit parentheses around the area code. 417-836-5000
    • Most words beginning with “non” or “post” should be formatted as one word with no hyphen (ex. noncredit, nondegree, nondegree-seeking, postbaccalaureate, postdoctoral, postdoctorate). Post-master’s should be hyphenated.
    • Email, not e-mail.
    • Use only one space between sentences. Do not use a space at the end of a paragraph or bulleted list item.
  • Common Bear terms:
    • Bear CLAW
    • Bear Line
    • BearWear
    • BearFare
    • BearMail
    • BearPass
    • Bear Park North (South)
    • BoomerMeals
    • Bear Breaks

Resources

Editorial Style Guide

Web Accessibility Clinic

Web Press Documentation

Unused Web Press assets archived

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Unused assets in Web Press Asset Manager folders have been archived. If a needed file was archived contact the web help desk to have it restored.

By the numbers

  • Files in Web Press before archive: 33,700+
  • Storage consumed: more than 19.8GB
  • Unused files archived: 5,100+(15.1%)
  • Storage reclaimed: more than 2.7GB (13.9%)

Support

Please contact the web help desk at WebPress@MissouriState.edu or 417-836-5271 if you have any questions or would like assistance removing unneeded files from your Asset Manager folder.