Best Practices and Accessibility

Strive for usability, not comprehensiveness. Students are confused by excessive content.

• Write clearly and simply.
• Put the most important information at the top. Arrange lists of resources by usefulness, not alphabetically.
• Break text into small chunks and use lists and headers. Avoid long paragraphs. Keep tabs, text, lists, number of pages and boxes to a minimum. 
• Keep lists short; less than 7 items is ideal. 
• Use a personal tone in writing.
• Focus on using an active voice rather than passive.
  • active voice: The library provides study spaces.
  • passive voice: Study Spaces are provided at the library.
• Use pronouns. The user is You. The library is We.
  • "We provide study spaces."
  • "We'll help you find the most relevant resources."
• Avoid jargon. Use words the user will use.
  • Bad: "The link resolver will direct you to intermediary pages with direct links to publisher and vendor-provided sites with pdf or html versions of articles."
  • Good: "Click Full Text Finder for the entire article."
• Describe (briefly!) resources whose subject area or type of content is not clear from the name.

Use the Book from the Catalog feature to highlight print resources. 

Yet, keep mentions of print resources to a minimum. The best resource may be print. However, long lists of resources inaccessible via the web will frustrate or confuse most users.

Avoid student comments, ratings, and recommendations. Students are seeking advice from experts not from other students.

The STLCC Online Writing Style Guide is the basis for our LibGuides editorial guidelines.

Resources for effective usability and writing for the web

Best-practice Guides

A small survey of guides on best practices from other academic libraries.