Last week I attended a very informative webinar by Lisa Welchman on web standards called “The Impossible Dream: Defining and Implementing Corporate Web Standards.” Web standards are a major component of a holistic web governance and management model. Instituting web standards in any organization can be a challenge, but it is even more difficult in higher ed where decentralization and academic freedom often rule. It seems every academic and administrative unit believe they should not be forced to follow web standards created by the central web group. But a mature web presence requires standards.
The webinar provided some very valuable suggestions that are applicable to the challenges we face in higher ed. Here are my key takeaways:
- When creating standards, you need to have the right people in the room. My experience has been that the web team thinks that because they are the web experts, they should be charged with creating standards. IMHO – this is the single biggest reason why standards aren’t adopted. I’ve seen way too many web teams try to create standards in a vacuum then wonder why they run into resistance down the road. Lisa recommended that when creating a group to define web standards you need to think expertise, ownership, and authority. She also recommended having “squeaky wheels” in the room. Following this approach will go a long way to having the standards actually be followed.
- Standards should not be just about best practices. Standards need to support institutional goals and objectives. On college campuses, individual schools and administrative units have unique needs. Web standards must accommodate this reality. When things go wrong with web standards, it’s usually because you have bad standards.
- Having standards does not make them real. You need enforcement. That being said, when approaching enforcement, you can’t be on a power trip. Change your paradigm from wanting control to following a protocol. Instead of being the naysayer, you need to be the enabler. You also need to pick your battles. As former UB president Steven Sample said in his book The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership – “know the hill you are willing to die on.”
While listening to the webinar, I kept thinking of the principles found in Stephen Covey’s book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I have spoken often on “the Seven Habits of Highly Effective Web Teams” and when it comes to web standards Habit Four: Think Win-Win, and Habit Five: Seek first to understand, then to be understood will help you achieve your goals.
So my questions for you. Do you have web standards on your campus? Are they followed by everyone? Are they enforced?
Hi Mark,
I think you’re absolutely right about the role of standards in governance. We’ve had standards on our campus for many years and have had very uneven success in implementing them. Until recently.
Our new-ish branding policy requires that all units use the header and footer from the web templates we provide (we being the Office of University Relations at the University of Minnesota). We introduced the templates over two years ago and gave units until the end of the 2010 calendar year to incorporate them on their sites. Units that are not in compliance must show work toward becoming compliant and we consult with them. We’ve not had any real resistance to using the web headers and footers (except by the usual suspects) and you can go to *almost* any of the top level sites on our campus to see the consistency. A welcome change from sites that used to use anything but school colors and totally neglected to mention what university they are a part of.
In developing the template header and footer, we held meetings with our stakeholders (including squeaky wheels) – campus communicators and web developers. We made tweaks as necessary and continue to improve the code over time (we’re working on an HTML 5 version now).
Our standards go beyond best practices and are outlined in our brand website at http://www.umn.edu/brand. It feels like we’re on the right track with what we have in place so far and we’re looking forward to more discussion about web governance!
To your questions, at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the answers are yes, yes and yes (Do you have web standards on your campus? Are they followed by everyone? Are they enforced?).
I think it’s very (very) important to the success of any web standards discussions that we move beyond just talking about “templates,” as if it were all about visual design.
And I agree wholeheartedly that all voices must be part of the design/development. Success comes from offering everyone an opportunity to contribute, rather than to complain.
The developed web standards need to have a template, sure, but the template needs to do things. We’ve been able to build in code that monitors an emergency alert feed, and code that carries authentication status around with the site user as they traverse the site. Not all web apps support the single sign on system that the university provides, though, which is another issue, a ‘next’ issue, to overcome.