Web Standards

Standard Template

A standard template is used for all Bentley departmental and organization web pages. The look and feel changes slightly depending on the requirements of the site. Standards regarding text are dictated by Bentley's Content and Creative Services and Digital Engagement departments, and are described in brief below.

Top of page navigation (sometimes described as the top 'banner') is created and maintained by Digital Engagement. If your department or organization name has changed, you can request that the image be changed to reflect the new name by emailing ga_webpublishing@bentley.edu.

Please Note: From a usability standpoint, it is best to have no more than nine navigation items ('buttons'). Optimally, the navigation items should be limited in number to four or five.

The standard footer, also maintained by Digital Engagement, consists of the area below and including the horizontal rule at the bottom of each page. It contains the horizontal rule, the Bentley logo, address, etc., and links to site information and social media sites.

Bentley University Style Guidelines

In doubt about how to spell a word if it has two legitimate spellings? Are you not sure when to use an abbreviation, or when to spell out a number? Need to use the Bentley logo or athletic symbol and don't know where to get it? All of these answers and more are covered in detail on the Content and Creative Services website Style Guide page. Take a few moments to go through the site and you'll learn about Bentley standards and policies for all external communications, including pages on the Web.

Bentley has very specific guidelines, such as using the phone number format 781.891.2000. One standard that not many people know is using only one space after punctuation (not two, as you may have learned in high school typing class!). If you look through a book, magazine or newspaper, you will see that the 'one space' rule is used. This is an Associated Press guideline that has been adopted by most organizations (Bentley uses the "AP Style Guide" for most communications). The website has an abundance of information about punctuation, spelling, usage, abbreviations, and more that you will find useful when creating documents (for the Web or otherwise).