U.S. Department of Energy - Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

EERE Communication Standards & Guidelines

QA Checklist for OpenText Sites

This is the Quality Assurance (QA) Checklist for all sites that are hosted in the OpenText Content Management system. See the QA Checklists for other types of EERE Web sites on the QA Checklist page.

Section 508 Requirements All tables must be coded to be 508 compliant. Forms must be coded to be 508 compliant. Scripting on the site must be 508 compliant. Graphics and image maps must have alt text. Only client-side image maps are used. Graphics must include sufficient contrast to meet 508 standards. Graphics should not flash in the range of 4 to 59 flashes per second. Multimedia must meet the requirements in the Multimedia QA Checklist. PDFs must either use native document tagging or the "Make Accessible" plug-in in Adobe Acrobat. Scanned PDFs have an HTML alternative. Information conveyed with color must be available without color. Links to PDFs must follow the EERE PDF linking standards. Optimize PowerPoint files for Accessibility. Web Content Standards All sites must be spell checked. When linking off-site, you must tell your readers where the link goes. You must have written authorization from the copyright holder to display any content on your site that was not produced by the federal government. All Web sites must have a "Contacts" page. All webmasters must retain all e-mail inquiries for 3 years. All sites must use the EERE-approved common navigation structure. All pages must have intro text. All blogs must follow the EERE's requirements for blogs. Web Technical Standards All sites must work on a 1024 x 768 monitor resolution. All links on the site work. HTML syntax must follow HTML 4.01 Transitional Standards or higher. Special characters must be encoded using character entity references. All HTML document syntax must be validated by the W3C's validator. File names must clearly describe the file's content. File names cannot contain uppercase letters, spaces, or special characters. Static HTML file names must end in .html. Subdirectories must be used for major subsites. Native Files must be linked to as per the EERE linking standards. Native files should be kept in a /docs/ directory. If news, events, features, publications, or images are coded before the main content begins, a stopindex is placed around it. All PDFs must have metadata. PDFs that are more than one page in length must include thumbnails. The "open view" of all PDFs should be set up as described on the PDFs page. PDFs must be compatible with Adobe 8 or lower. PDFs should live in a "/pdfs/" directory. Title tags are coded properly. Links should be coded appropriately within and between sites. Linked H2s must include a graphical arrow. If a link to the top of the page is included, it must be labeled "Back to Top" and use the EERE:"backtotop" style. Graphics should follow the EERE Web Graphic Style. Graphics must use approved fonts and font sizes. Graphics must be located in the "images" directory. Graphics in the center must be no wider than 535 pixels for 3 column layouts, or 695 pixels for 2 column layouts in the Program or Subsite Templates. Graphics must be less than 546 pixels in Office Template sites. Features are 249 pixels wide. Web Applications must follow all of the Web application requirements. Electronic newsletters must follow the standards for electronic newsletters.