Purpose

A Visual Link Collection is formed by assembling various links into a single collection of content.

When to Use

Opt for a visual link collection when you want to gather and present multiple links in an organized manner, complemented by relevant images.

Elements of Visual Link Collections

  • Intro title: title of link collection, appears to the user but is optional.
  • Title: content limited to 75 characters, option to hide this title.
  • Links: at least 2 links with no more than 12 links. Also create new links within this section.

Visual Link Collection Best Practices

Visual Link Collections help organize disparate links into one unified whole. Links always include a visual component (an image) and may be placed on a Landing Page. Links automatically break into 4 across.
 

 A collection of content of type "Link" gets assembled into a Visual Link Collection. 

Sample Visual Link Collection
As published on Iowa.gov

Each individual "Link" consists of a title, optional text, required image, and description. 

Add Links to a Visual Link Collection

If you are seeking images, choose from your approved stock photography provider, and save to your hard drive in order to add to the Media Library for your Link.  If you don't have a license for stock photography you can submit a Service Desk request with the photo ID for any image on Shutterstock.com for DOM DoIT to get the photo for you.

1

Log in to your site

Everyone who writes things on this website has a special title. These titles give them certain abilities, like who can edit, review and publish what. You can ask for a different title or take one away from someone using the user manager.

2

Navigate to /admin/content/micro

This Admin view displays all micro-content on the site and allows authors to sort & filter the list. Authors can edit micro-content types from this view.

Microcontent filter

Microcontent is constrained to items that are typically "placed" elsewhere. For example: microcontent such as accordions, promos, link collections and visual link collections, and statistics are created and then may be utilized throughout the site.

3

Create a Link first, all Links are collected into Visual Link Collections

Navigate to /node/add/link and assemble all the pieces of your desired link together. Remember all Links, require an image.

4

Create a Visual Link Collection

Navigate to /node/add/visual_link_collection.

When you create the Visual Link Collection, you may then assemble all the desired Links, and sort them into the desired order.

5

Place the microcontent into a Basic Page or a Landing Page

Now that there is microcontent that has its place inside the /admin/content/microcontent menu, you may take that content and place it throughout the site.

As an example, common placements include:

Microcontent Placement
Type of MicrocontentLanding PageBasic Page
PromoCan be placedCan be placed
Video PromoCan be placedN/A
AccordionN/ACan be placed
Link Collection ListCan be placedCan be placed
Visual Link CollectionCan be placedN/A
StatisticCan be placedCan be placed
Automatic ListCan be placedCan be placed
ContactN/ACan be placed
DocumentN/ACan be placed
6

Confirm your knowledge

If you need visual guidance that shows the step-by-step process of creating things for your website make sure to go to our Video Training Page!