Guide Purpose
This page explains how the guide system should organize page templates, contributor documentation, intake requirements, search metadata, navigation rules, and update paths.
Search, Navigation, and Template Connection Strategy
Use this guide to plan UVU page templates as connected, searchable, maintainable systems for developers, content contributors, and strategy teams.
1. Overview
The UVU guide should work as a connected university template system, not only a collection of visual examples. Each layout should have a clear purpose, approved structure, content requirements, search strategy, navigation logic, and ownership path.
The audience for this guide is developers, content contributors, strategy reviewers, and site owners. The goal is to make page templates easier to build, easier to reuse, easier to search, and easier to maintain across UVU web properties.
| Question | Why It Matters | Guide Strategy |
|---|---|---|
| What type of page is this? | Developers and contributors need to know which layout pattern applies. | Define the page type, page purpose, required sections, and approved components. |
| Who maintains it? | Templates and content become unreliable without ownership. | Document the content owner, technical owner, review cycle, and update triggers. |
| How should it connect? | Pages should not become isolated one-off layouts. | Define related templates, guide pages, intake forms, and cross-page links. |
| How should it be found? | Search depends on titles, labels, terms, metadata, and page relationships. | Capture official terms, contributor terms, student terms, synonyms, and common task language. |
| How will it improve? | Search data and content review should shape future template updates. | Track search terms, no-result searches, clicked results, and contributor requests. |
2. Template System Model
The main layout page, guide page, and intake form are not all intended for the same public end user. They are a planning and production model for developers, content contributors, strategy teams, and site owners building pages in the guide system.
This model helps the team define what a layout is for, how content should be structured, what page relationships need to exist, and what information should be collected before a page or template is built.
Main Layout Page
A working sample or template page that shows how the layout should look, what content areas it needs, and how the page supports a real UVU use case.
Guide Page
A contributor-facing page that explains how to use the layout, what content is required, which components are approved, and how the page should connect to related templates.
Intake Form
A production-facing form that collects the information needed to build, review, route, update, or approve a page using the template system.
| System Piece | Primary Audience | Purpose | Connection to the System |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main Layout Page | Developers, designers, strategy reviewers | Shows the approved layout direction and content structure for a page type. | Becomes the source layout that future pages can follow. |
| Guide Page | Developers and content contributors | Explains how to use the layout, what content is required, and which patterns are allowed. | Documents the rules behind the layout so the pattern can be reused consistently. |
| Intake Form | Content contributors, project requesters, site owners | Collects the strategy, content, ownership, search, and routing information needed before production. | Feeds the page-building process and helps prevent missing content or disconnected pages. |
How the Three Pieces Work Together
The main layout page demonstrates the pattern. The guide page documents how to use the pattern. The intake form gathers the information needed to apply the pattern to a real UVU page request.
Together, these pieces help the guide system stay consistent, searchable, maintainable, and easier for contributors to use.
3. Navigation Strategy
Navigation strategy should be defined at the template level. Developers and contributors need to know which navigation patterns belong in each page type and how those patterns support both university structure and user tasks.
A template should not only show where navigation appears. It should explain what each navigation area is responsible for, when it should be used, and how it connects the page to the larger UVU system.
User Task Language
These terms help contributors write links, headings, labels, and page descriptions in language users recognize.
- Apply
- Register
- Pay
- Request help
- Find a program
- Meet with advising
- Submit a form
- Contact someone
University Owner Language
These terms help organize ownership, routing, review responsibility, and official page structure.
- Admissions
- Registrar
- Financial Aid
- Academic Advising
- Student Affairs
- Schools and Colleges
- IT Support
- Marketing and Communications
| Layer | Use For | Template Rule |
|---|---|---|
| Global Navigation | Broad university areas and major task paths. | Use when a page must connect to the larger UVU web ecosystem. |
| Subnav | School, department, office, hub, or section navigation. | Use when the page belongs to a local site structure or multi-page section. |
| Anchor Tabs | Long guide pages and structured page sections. | Use when contributors need a scannable page with clear section jumps. |
| Breadcrumbs | Page orientation and hierarchy. | Use when the page needs to show location within a larger information structure. |
| Related Links | Next templates, supporting guides, forms, and resources. | Use near the bottom of the page to show how this template connects to others. |
4. Search Strategy
Search strategy should be built into the template system before pages are created. Contributors should know which terms, titles, labels, and relationships need to be captured so pages are easier to find and easier to maintain.
The guide should support both official university language and plain-language terms used by students, families, faculty, staff, and community members. This helps templates produce pages that work better in search, navigation, and related-content systems.
| Metadata Field | Purpose | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Template name | Identifies the approved layout pattern. | Program landing page |
| Page type | Groups similar pages for search, navigation, and governance. | Main layout, guide page, intake form, hub page, story page |
| Primary audience | Clarifies who the template is designed to support. | Content contributors, developers, site owners |
| Primary task | Defines the action or production need the template supports. | Build a program page, request a page update, document a layout |
| Search terms | Improves internal guide search and page discovery. | program template, academic page, intake, layout guide |
| Related templates | Creates page-to-page pathways inside the guide system. | Program layout, program guide, program intake form |
5. Search Data Study Path
Search data should be used to improve the guide system and the templates it contains. The goal is to understand what developers, contributors, and site owners are trying to find, where the guide is unclear, and which templates need better labels, examples, documentation, or intake paths.
Track
- Search term
- Normalized search term
- Results count
- Clicked result URL
- Clicked result position
- No-result flag
- Refined-search flag
- Page searched from
- Anonymous session ID
Do Not Track
- Names
- UVU IDs
- Email addresses
- Phone numbers
- Form responses with personal details
- Personal academic records
| Search Signal | What It Means | Recommended Action |
|---|---|---|
| High search volume, low clicks | Contributors see results but do not recognize the right template or guide. | Improve template names, guide titles, descriptions, and related links. |
| High search volume, no results | The guide does not include the terms contributors are using. | Add synonyms, redirects, new guide pages, or clearer template labels. |
| Repeated refinements | Users are struggling to describe the template or task they need. | Add plain-language contributor terms and clearer category names. |
| Search from the same page | The current guide page may be missing a needed related link. | Add the missing template, guide, form, or support link directly on the page. |
| Form-name searches | Contributors are trying to start a request or submit production details. | Make the related intake form easier to find from the template guide page. |
Monthly Review Focus
Review top searches, no-result searches, low-click searches, repeated refinements, and searches that start from guide pages. Use those findings to improve template names, contributor instructions, metadata, and page connections.
6. Governance and Update Path
Templates need ownership the same way public pages need ownership. Each template should have a content owner, technical owner, review cycle, update trigger, related-page connection, and maintenance path.
Governance should make it clear who updates the layout, who updates the contributor instructions, who owns the intake questions, and when the template set should be reviewed.
High-Risk Templates
Review every 30–60 days.
- Admissions
- Tuition
- Financial aid
- Deadlines
- Policy pages
- Safety pages
Medium-Risk Templates
Review every semester.
- Program pages
- School pages
- Department pages
- Service pages
- Office pages
Low-Risk Templates
Review annually.
- Evergreen stories
- General overview pages
- Static resource pages
- Archived examples
| Trigger | Reason to Review |
|---|---|
| New academic year | Dates, programs, forms, contacts, and priorities may change. |
| Catalog change | Program templates and academic page guidance may need updates. |
| Content model change | Guide pages and intake forms may need new required fields. |
| Component update | Template documentation should match approved CSS, JS, and markup patterns. |
| Form process change | The guide page and intake form must stay aligned. |
| Search analytics demand | Repeated no-result searches may show missing or unclear template guidance. |
7. Implementation Checklist
| Step | Action | Done When |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Map the template set | Create the main layout page, contributor guide page, and intake form for the page type. | Developers and contributors can understand the layout, use it correctly, and provide the right information before production. |
| 2. Add template metadata | Define audience, task, owner, search terms, related templates, guide page, form, and review date. | The template can be categorized, searched, reused, and improved through data. |
| 3. Define navigation rules | Document which navigation patterns belong in the template and when they should be used. | Contributors know how the page connects to the larger guide and university system. |
| 4. Track guide search behavior | Collect search terms, no-result searches, clicked results, and refinements. | Monthly reports show what contributors and site owners are trying to find. |
| 5. Improve the system monthly | Add synonyms, rewrite guide headings, improve related links, and create missing template documentation. | Search failures turn into guide and template updates. |
Core Principle
Every template should make the page easier to build, easier to understand, easier to search, and easier to maintain.
