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How many pages do you need?

Most INSTAAR-hosted labs/groups have just a single home page. A few have additional pages for detailed topics or news. For example, the Mountain Hydrology Group has four pages: a home page, two pages to help visitors access snow data stored elsewhere, and a blog page. If your lab/group needs many pages, images, file uploads, or other complexity, then the INSTAAR website may not be the best option. Instead, we recommend an independent website hosted by Squarespace, Wix, Weebly, Web Express, etc. David is happy to discuss options with you.  

Request access for your web editor

Because of a limitation in ���񱦵�’s Web Express website platform, only one person in your lab/group can access your lab/group webpages. Decide who will be your lab/group’s web editor and have them email David Lubinski to request an account. David can typically respond within about 24 hours. He will set up your editor to have “Edit My Content” privileges and change the author of the lab/group’s pages accordingly. 

Log in

1. After access is set up, you can log in at /instaar/user with your ���񱦵� IdentiKey username and password.
2. Upon logging in, you'll be in your Dashboard. Select the Authored Content tab and click your lab/group name. Alternatively, navigate to your lab/group as usual.
3. When you see your lab/group page, click “Edit” on the blue bar near the top of the page.

Instructional videos

Use Web Express

The INSTAAR website uses ���񱦵�’s Web Express website-building platform. Whether you are new to Web Express or not, we suggest that you check out the instructions, tips, and videos shown above. If needed, you might want to or ask Shelly or David a question or three. We don't recommend taking CU’s Web Express self-paced training courses unless you are planning to do extensive work in Web Express beyond your lab/group. Even the introductory “core” course takes hours and covers more topics than you need for editing an INSTAAR lab/group.

Edit in one main field

Once you've logged in and clicked the "Edit" button on your lab/group page, you'll see an editing screen. It shows your information in one big Body field with an editing toolbar at top. You can use the tools in the toolbar to format your text, add links and buttons, and paste in plain text (see video above).  Images are uploaded via the Photos section below the Body field and inserted directly into the Body field (see video above).

Stay concise

In general, the goal is to keep your home page to a reasonable length, mostly to avoid long scrolling on phone screens. People pay better attention to more concise content.  If you have lots of descriptive text to include, you can set up expanding sections. Only the title of the expanding section is visible until you click on its [+] symbol, which "expands" the content so that you can read all of it.  If you have even more text, like multiple paragraphs and photos about the history of your lab, you might want a separate page for that.   If so, contact David about creating a new page for you.

Dive in, you've got backups

Please don't hestitate to start editing your lab/group and do some experimentation.  If you run into trouble, you've got two backups.  First, you can contact David or Shelly for help.  Second, revisions are automatically saved; If you make a really big mistake, you can roll back to a prior version.  Just look for the Revisions tab near the top of your editing screen.

Make your content accessible

The University has a legal obligation to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.  This means that all of the INSTAAR webpages must be accessible, including yours.  As an editor, you can ensure accessibility for those with visual and cognitive impairments by carefully considering how you enter content.  Here are some key tips:

• Use headings to structure the content of your page
  • Start each main section with a Heading 2 (H2).
  • Subheadings are H3 and so on (H4 > H5).
  • Do not skip heading levels.
• Write descriptive text for your links
  • Try to avoid using the raw URL as the text for your link.
  • Don't use "Click Here" or "More Information" for your link text.
    • Instead, make the text more descriptive, like "2023 snowfall information".
• Enter image alternative (alt) text
  • Before you click the upload button for an image, you need to add a text description.
  • Succinctly describe the image for someone who cannot see it well or at all.
  • E.g. A smiling researcher in puffy winter parka holds a frozen ice core, with a dramatic mountain in the background.
• Avoid all caps
  • Screen readers for visually impaired uses may read text that is written in all caps as the letters instead of the words.
  • All caps is generally harder to read because the words lack the shape of letters.
• Use the toolbar buttons for lists
  • Chose the button for a bulleted or numbered list.
  • Do not type your own bullets, using symbols like "*" or "-".