Website Standards and Best Practices

Perceptions of MSU’s quality, value and standing are affected by a visitor’s experience when browsing university websites, reading content, accessing information and using web-based services. 

MSU Web Standards provide guidance on web elements and practices that are required for every institutional webpage to facilitate a quality brand experience. 

Everyone benefits by adopting the MSU website standards. In doing so, units help:

• Build a strong digital identity for Michigan State University;
• Identify and differentiate a website, and its respective unit or organization, as affiliated with the university;
• Support a consistent and quality experience for website visitors across the many websites at MSU.

All institutional websites are expected to adhere to MSU website, accessibility and brand standards. If a unit is working with a vendor to design, build or maintain a website, the unit must ensure that the vendor is aware of, and adheres to, these same standards.

Michigan State University adheres to the web standards established by the World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C. View the full set of standards on the W3C Web Standards website.

The MSU Web Standards are described in detail on the following pages. These represent version 3.0.1, updated July 1, 2024.