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Digital Exhibits Guide

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Send the Digital Resources & Collections Committee an email any time!

Editing Your Site

When you are editing the narrative content of your website, there are a few things to keep an eye out for. You'll want to make sure that you are using neutral language, and that any claims or statements that you make can be proven. For the latter, we do encourage using a references or works cited page, but it is not required. If we do not find an easy citation or reference though, we may question your claim and ask for one, or may ask you to use more qualifying language. You will also want to ensure that you are consistent throughout your text with certain style choices, such as using em vs en dashes, capitalization of various groups or things, etc.

You will also want to make sure that your images have consistent metadata. It is preferred that you link to the image itself if it is in EXPLORE, and if not, then the collection record in EXPLORE, and if that does not exist, then the institution's EXPLORE page. Our goal is always to drive traffic and exploration back to the EXPLORE database, and we want viewers to be able to find more information about the specific items included in each exhibit. There will be some exceptions for published items or things otherwise not yet in EXPLORE and we can discuss those references on a case by case basis (previous solutions have included a link directly to the institutional website, or a link to the record in WorldCat if it is held at multiple Chicago Collections institutions).

These types of edits - neutral language, statements that can be proven, style consistency, typos or other grammatical edits and detailed information in image captions - are all things that the Digital Resources & Collections Committee will look for when it is time for your site review in the Final Steps. We encourage you to review these things yourself first so there is less to edit, but know that they will need to be addressed before publication. The Digital Resources & Collections Committee can help to address that work if needed.

Testing Your Site

When you are testing your site, you want to make sure it works as expected in different environments and situations. Pages, links and media should be tested in as many browsers and environments as possible (PC, mobile, Safari, IE, Chrome, Firefox, etc.). The exhibit designers should also check for the following: 

  • Responsiveness as browser window size changes
  • Text wraps correctly around image (example: we don’t want one line of text on top of an image and then the rest of the paragraph of text next to it) - if this caused a persistent problem it sometimes helped to put the entire paragraph of text inside a <div> tag in the HTML editing interface
  • No big white spaces or gaps on page  
  • Links are working
  • Page functions correctly  
  • Placement of images on page; experiment with inline images or other placements to create more visual interest
  • All necessary parts of captions are included

A sample test script is included in the Appendix.

Accessibility Checklist

When creating a digital exhibition, its important to keep accessibility considerations in mind. To ease this process, Chicago Collections has complied this checklist for new exhibitions (adapted with permission from Northwestern University Library's Digital Accessibility Guide) to maximize accessibility:

  • Do all pages have unique titles?
  • Do pages have a meaningful hierarchy?
  • Does the background and text contrast sufficiently? (Use Web AIM's Contrast Checker to confirm)
  • Can text be resized? 
  • Do the hyperlinks include meaningful language about what the link contains? (See above for example)
  • Are all images properly described using the alt-text field?
  • Does video and audio include captions and/or transcripts?
  • Can any moving, flashing, blinking content be paused or hidden? Furthermore, please ensure content does not blink more than 3 times in one second.
  • Can pages be navigated via keyboard?

Need More Help?

Feel free to email the Digital Resource & Collections Committee with any additional questions - we are happy to add more content to this guide as needed.