The website is the primary way we communicate with the School community – learn how to make the most of it! We'll deepen your knowledge and provide you with new tools to tackle our content management system (CMS).
Remember, CMS users are required to participate in regular trainings to stay up-to-date with changes and keep skills (and content!) fresh. For questions about web content or to request specific trainings, email steinhardt.webteam@nyu.edu or schedule a 30 minute one-on-one appointment with a member of the Steinhardt Web Team.
Upcoming Training: Mixtape, Vol 2
We’re turning up the volume on our training mixtape! Our collaborative series of hands-on working sessions is back to help you master the art of creating standout content for the website and beyond.
Featuring chart-topping tips and strategies from Digital Strategy and Experience, the Steinhardt Office of Communications, and the Office of Digital Accessibility, we’ll help you make the most of our new component style options, launched this fall as part of our Website Visual Refresh. Get ready to make your content a hit!
TRACKLIST
I Want to Break Free: Refreshing Content with New Style Options
Monday, November 2 | 2-3 PM
Fall in love (for the first time) with our new component treatments. This open working session will give you the chance to bring in content you’d like to refresh and work collaboratively in real time. Try out new component styles with the chance to ask questions and get feedback as you do!
This Must Be The Place: Using Grids to Spotlight and Direct
Friday, November 6 | 2-3 PM
Do you know where your page visitors long to be or what information they long to find? Grid components (which include reference cards, custom cards, and stat cards) can be a great tool to make sure that the most important content stands out and benefits visitors to your page. Whether you’re showcasing text, visually representing information with a donut chart, linking to upcoming events, and more…there must be a grid!
See Me in a New Light: Refreshing Content with New Style Options
Tuesday, November 10 | 10-11 AM
If you have a page that could use a take two, now’s the time to try out new component styles and see your page in a new light! This open working session will give you the chance to bring in content you’d like to refresh and work collaboratively in real time, asking questions and getting feedback as you do!
Famous Last Words: Communicating Accessibly with Contextual Links and Alt Text
Wednesday, November 11 | 3-4 PM
"Click here" and "Read more" links and images with “image” as alternative text are famous last words when it comes to inaccessible web writing. Join NYU Digital Accessibility in a session where we’ll cover strategies for writing descriptive link text that makes sense out of context and image descriptions that make sense in context.
This Grid Is…Automatic, Supersonic, Hypnotic, Funky Fresh: Using Dynamic Grids
Tuesday, November 17 | 10-11 AM
The act of manually keeping reference card grids “funky fresh” with news and events is a task not everyone has time to do. With customizable dynamic grids, your upcoming event or most timely news story can be top charted ever since the day it started! This session will review use cases for these components, as well as hands-on practice of creating news and events pages to automatically appear where they belong.
News York, News York: Designing News Stories
Thursday, November 19 | 11 AM-12 PM
Start spreadin' the news ... on our CMS! Learn how to determine what kind of content works well as a news story, make the required elements of a news page shine, and leverage layout components and related content to engage your audience. If you can make your news story work here, you'll make it anywhere. It's up to you!
Ongoing Training: Intro/Refresher
Brightspace Refresher/Introduction to the Content Management System
Our team has developed an asynchronous online training module to introduce users to Steinhardt's Web Content Management System. If you'd like to participate in the pilot email steinhardt.webteam@nyu.edu.
The training mixtape was a collaborative series of working sessions designed to master the art of content for our website and beyond. The mixtape was packed with all the chart-topping strategies from the offices of Digital Strategy and Experience, Marketing, Communications, and NYU Accessible Technology Services to make your content a smash hit.
Digital Accessibility
Digital accessibility is the practice of ensuring that all content available online can be used by our community who have a diverse range of hearing, movement, sight, or cognitive abilities. Anyone who creates and/or publishes digital content at NYU is responsible for creating content that is digitally accessible.
Introduction to Digital Accessibility
Web accessibility is an essential way we make our content and community inclusive. Learn the basics of making – and keeping – your digital content accessible.
Accessibility Beyond the Basics
NYU Accessible Technology Services, Digital Accessibility Program's Marshall Sunnes and Jodi Goldberg as they take us deeper into the digital accessibility essentials in order to improve the user's experience.
- Video of Accessibility Beyond the Basics session
- Accessibility Beyond the Basics presentation deck
- HeadingsMap (Chrome Extension)
- Testing Tools (including the Colour Contrast Analyser)
Advanced Digital Accessibility and PDF Creation
Designed for CMS users and other digital content creators who have already attended basic digital accessibility training, this session will help you go further with creating inclusive content, especially with PDFs.
PDFs: Unfit for Human (and Machine) Consumption
User experience research repeatedly finds that PDFs are challenging to read online and time-consuming to make digitally accessible. Join the Steinhardt Web Team and NYU IT's Digital Accessibility Program to look at alternatives to creating PDFs.
Creating Digitally Accessible Forms (Alternatives to PDFs)
NYU Accessible Technology Services, Digital Accessibility Program's Marshall Sunnes and Jodi Goldberg discuss better, more accessible ways to create digital forms.
- Video of the Creating Digitally Accessible Forms session
- Creating Digitally Accessible Forms presentation deck
- Creating a Google account without having to change your email address (helpful for public Google forms that require a Google account or Gmail account)
- NYU IT Policy for Electronic Data and System Risk Classification
Video Captioning with NYU Stream
Join NYU Accessible Technology Services, Digital Accessibility Program's Marshall Sunnes and Jodi Goldberg as they dig into how to caption videos using NYU Stream, including captioning best practices and how to export for other platforms if needed.
How to Use and Test Digital Content with a Screen Reader
Creating accessible content isn't just a matter of checklists – you can experience and test yourself with assistive technologies! In this session you'll learn the basics of using your computer's built-in screen reading software and explore how to test webpages and PDFs.
- Video of the Intro to Screen Readers session
- Intro to Screen Readers presentation deck
- VoiceOver for Mac Shortlist (recommended browser: Safari)
- NVDA for Windows Shortlist (recommended browser: Firefox)
- Learn VoiceOver gestures on iPhone
Writing Web Copy
Website visitors tend to have a shorter attention span than average when it comes to reading, typically only spending enough time on a page to read around 400 words. The Steinhardt Web Team provides a variety of trainings to help generate and revise written content to make sure those words count!
Writing for the Web 101
Learn the basics of good web writing, including how web copy differs from other writing, what readers expect when they visit pages, and how to write content that engages and excites. Valuable for all web writers, even those who don't use the CMS!
Writing for Our Website
Get tips on how to make the most of our unique CMS, including best practices for page titles and teasers and guidelines for components.
Microcopy
Having a hard time fitting your copy into teasers and brief components? We'll talk about how to approach super-short text to make the most of your pages.
Refresh Your Content!
Learn how to identify your old pages, implement newer features that can improve how your content flows, and check hidden spots for out-of-date information.
- Video of the Refresh Your Content! session
- Refresh Your Content! presentation deck
- Refresh Your Page Tip Sheet
- SEO Page Title Dashboard (helpful for reviewing multiple page titles at once)
Building Pages
The Steinhardt CMS offers a large variety of content and page types. These trainings help CMS users and content creators to develop an understanding of how to use the existing content tools to best share information. All CMS users are required to take the introductory course prior to receiving system access.
Refresher/Introduction to the CMS
An overview of our content management system and learn how you can make the most of our website.
Page Creation Workflow
Go through the steps of creating a page, from the idea to execution to approval. Appropriate for all CMS users!
Posting News Stories and Events in the CMS
Designed for CMS users who create or edit news stories and events, this session will walk through best practices and workflow for adding these content types to the website.
Enhancing Event Pages
Looking to take your event pages to the next level? Come learn tips and tricks for creating event pages that will engage and inform your prospective attendees.
Components and Page Layout
Get tips on how to make the most of the components available in our CMS, including best practices for combining components and using images and background colors.
Search and Web Metrics
When planning and creating web content, it's important to be able to judge effectiveness and respond accordingly. The Steinhardt Web Team provides trainings on how to analyze web metrics and use those metrics to inform the development of a content strategy.
Writing for the Web and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Introduction to Google Analytics
Learn how to use Google Analytics to understand how your audience is engaging with your web content so you can create the best user experience possible.
Additional Resources
Writing for the Web