Best Practices and Accessibility

Strive for usability, not comprehensiveness. Too much content can be confusing. 

Style & Tone

• Write clearly and simply.
• Use a personal tone.
• Focus on using an active voice rather than passive.
  • (Good) active voice: The library provides study spaces.
  • (Bad) passive voice: Study spaces are provided at the the libraries.
• 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.
•  Briefly describe resources whose subject area or type of content is not clear from the name.

Organization

• Put the most important information at the top.
• Arrange lists of resources by usefulness, not alphabetically. Keep lists short; less than 7 items is ideal.
• Avoid long paragraphs. Break text into small chunks.
• Use lists and headers.
• Keep tabs, text, lists, number of pages and boxes to a minimum. 

Avoid or explain terms that students are unlikely to know. Be consistent.

• 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." 

Prefer context to text. We often use words when the meaning is obvious from context.

• Bad: "For help, contact the systems librarian (email: kabotsi@stlcc.edu, phone: 314-984-7620)."
• Good: "Contact the systems librarian (kabotsi@stlcc.edu • 314-984-7620) for help."

Link, don't repeat. 

• When information changes often, it's easier to keep it updated if it's in one place. 
• Avoid screen shots of our website. Pages change, and screen shots become outdated. 

Don't use absolute directions/positions when referring to a specific box/column. Your guide is responsive and columns will shift around for different screen sizes. 

• Bad: "See the box on the right for additional information."
• Good: "Additional information can be found in the Resources box."