Requirements

All requirements of the VCU Web Standards & Guidelines, along with brief documentation and examples, are organized into the following subdirectories:

1. General
2. Accessibility
3. Branding
4. Captioning
5. Content
6. Content Management
7. Design & Browser Compatibility
8. Domain
9. Mobile
10. Security
11. Analytics

Numbering & Structure

When looking through the requirement documentation, following a link to a requirement category, or following a link to an individual requirement, a numbering convention will be noticed. This is to ensure consistency throughout our documentation as well as ease of reference when linking to a requirement category or individual requirement internally/externally.

Requirement Categories

Links referencing a whole number (i.e. Content Management (6)) refer to a requirement category. The number is the category's index as it appears in the main navigation as well as the checklist. All requirements are grouped into categories to help convey what the requirements are fulfilling. These requirement categories can be found in the main navigation or above ordered-list.

Individual Requirements

Links referencing a decimal number (i.e. General, CMS Platform (6.1)) refer to an individual requirement. The number before the decimal point is the category the requirement falls under (as described above) and the number after the decimal point is the index of the requirement as it appears in the category's documentation.

Requirement Sub-Categories & Sub-Category Requirements

An exception to the above structure is if a requirement category is divided into sub-categories. The only example of requirement sub-categories and sub-category requirements is the Accessibility (2) requirement category. Under this category, requirement sub-categories will have one decimal (i.e. Accessibility, Federal (2.1)), and sub-category requirements will have two decimals (i.e. Accessibility, Federal, Skip to Content Links (2.1.1)).

Compliance

The amount of requirements a website must comply with is relative to the scope/intention of the website.

Organizational Websites

Organizational websites must comply with the Organizational Websites, Management & Hosting policy as well as all requirements of the VCU Web Standards & Guidelines. Organizational websites are reviewed annually for compliance using the VCU A-Z Index, which they must be listed in as per the General, Visibility & Ownership (1.6) requirement. This is done in hopes of creating a strong and unified identity, provide a good experience for visitors, and establish consistency for our decentralized university web presence.

Accessibility Reviews

All VCU websites must be compliant with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, Level AA. Existing VCU websites will be reviewed periodically for web accessibility compliance. VCU Web Services reserves the right to take down any website not in compliance in the event website owners do not take the necessary steps to fix non-compliant websites as indicated upon reviewal.