Site organization and structure

The EMU home page is designed around the concept of constituent-based links. This means that each visitor to the site can travel immediately to a section of the site developed specifically for his or her user group (or area of interest). This is particularly important because University sites have a broad variety of constituents, and site visitors are looking for very different kinds of information and resources.

The constituent-based links are established to be persistent throughout the site, even as a user navigates through the variety of pages under the emich domain. The EMU templates are set up to accommodate these links.

The EMU design is also set up to accommodate a variety of additional site links through the primary navigation on the left side of each page, and through additional developer-added navigation. If you have questions about setting up your site navigation, please contact the director of Web Communications and New Media.

A note about the home page | Organize strategically | Domain names at EMU

A note about links on the new EMU home page (www.emich.edu)

In an effort to keep the EMU home page "clean" and with a small and optimal number of links for usability purposes, new links within the EMU site will be accommodated on the constituent "landing" pages, or on other appropriate pages, at the discretion of the director of Web Communications and New Media.

Time-sensitive information MAY be added to the EMU home page. You may make a request by sending an e-mail message. The home page is not primarily a bulletin board or events promotion site, and specific criteria are applied in deciding which events or activities may be listed on the home page. Note that there are other sections of the web site developed to accommodate, publicize and provide information about time-sensitive events, activities and University highlights. Overall, the structure is intended to provide a unified and intuitive information architecture--and thus a better user experience.

Organize strategically

There are a number of principles for good site organization. In general, organize your site (both your content structure [on your site] and your directory structure [on the server]) with user expectations in mind. Throw out your EMU divisional org chart; it is not a good model for creating your site. Your site's structure should require no institutional knowledge on the part of the user. A complete stranger should be able to figure out how to navigate your site.

It is very helpful to map out your site's proposed organizational structure graphically, to establish links and hierarchy. This will also help you to determine how to use the EMU templates for your individual site. If you would like assistance in setting up your site's architecture, contact the director of Web Communications and New Media.

Follow these additional principles as well (from the section on General Site Standards):

Begin with a sustainable, platform-independent organizational structure for your site:

• Make sure that the default file in each directory and subdirectory is titled "index.html", all lowercase.
• Use lowercase titles for all your file names.
• Make sure that file names have proper extensions, such as .html or .htm, .jpg, .gif, .swf, etc.
• Do not use spaces or punctuation in file names, other than the underscore "_" convention.
• Place all your images and graphics in a subdirectory called "images." This subdirectory should be located within your site's top-level directory.
• Use relative pathnames for links and images, where possible.
• Use intuitive naming for your files and directories--keep file names as short and descriptive as possible.
• Use the University's name in the top (title) bar of the browser window for every page on your site--even those in the lower tiers. You may abbreviate to EMU, but it is important to identify all official EMU sites as such.

Domain names at EMU

To achieve a professional and cohesive web presence, EMU is applying a uniform method of selecting and designating domain names. The general principle is to move away from subdomains (such as history.emich.edu) and toward subdirectories of the main emich domain (such as www.emich.edu/history). Subdirectories with ample space and SFTP access on the emich server will be provided for all official sites by the director of Web Communications and New Media (or designee). Redirects can be established from existing subdomains, where needed. Further information about naming your web site at EMU is here.

Also, official EMU sites will remain in the .edu domain. The only exceptions are for auxiliary sites such as the EMU Foundation and WEMU radio. Non-.edu sites must be approved by the director of Web Communications. With rare exceptions requiring special permission, dot-com sites will not be hosted on EMU servers nor linked to the EMU web site. Dot-com sites will not be part of the emich domain.

Questions about this site should be referred to the director of Web Communications and New Media.