• Federal Requirements
• Starting a Website
• Writing
• Templates & Navigation
• Coding
• Web Applications
• Quality Assurance
  • OpenText Sites
  • In-Template Sites
  • Partnership Sites
  • Multimedia Checklist
• Maintenance
• Analysis & Usability
• Graphics
• Multimedia
• Newsletters
• PDFs
• Social Media
• Conference Websites
• Partnership Websites

QA Checklist for Partnership Sites

This is the Quality Assurance (QA) Checklist for all EERE Web sites that are not in the standard EERE Web template. 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. Pages are still understandable with the style sheet turned off. Include a way to skip repetitive navigation. 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 have a "webmaster" link in the footer. All sites must link to the EERE Privacy Policy from the footer. If EERE's privacy policy is not appropriate, then you must include a link to the relevant agency's privacy policy. Web Technical Standards All sites must work on a 1024 x 768 monitor resolution. All sites must work on all of the browsers in the EERE Testing Suite. All links on the site work. The site cannot use persistent cookies unless otherwise approved. JavaScript includes and metadata for statistics must be included on each page. This is only required for sites included in EERE's stats package. 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. Native Files must be linked to as per the EERE linking standards. If news, events, features, publications, or images are coded before the main content begins, a stopindex is placed around it. This is only required for sites indexed in EERE's search engine. All navigation that come before content, such as features and search boxes, must be surrounded by "Stopindex" Tags. This is only required for sites indexed in EERE's search engine. Web Applications must follow all of the Web application requirements. Partnership sites do not have to meet the "Branding" or "Navigation" requirements. Electronic newsletters must follow the standards for electronic newsletters. Electronic newsletters maintained by Partnership Sites do not have to be branded to EERE.