Writing for the Web

Visit the Digital Accessibility Hub's Writing Accessible Content page for information on how to make content easier to read for:

people with cognitive and learning disabilities,
people who learned English as their second language, as well as
people who are tired, distracted, or in a hurry.

Some important things to remember in order to make you text more accessible include:

Make sure your links have descriptive text and avoid duplicate links.
Lists can make content easier to scan and understand; consider using lists when writing about three or more related items.
Use left justification and ragged right margins for improved readability.
Avoid large sections of bolded and/or italicized text which can be difficult to read.
Use underlining only for links.

Guide Introduction

On your guide's home page, provide a concise overview of the guide's content and scope. To add a box of text, follow these steps:

Click on Add/ Reorder
select Rich Text/ HTML
enter your text and click on save

Guide Context

For each page of a guide, provide a brief paragraph explaining the significance of the page's contents.

Friendly URLs

Use - to separate words in a URL. Example: harlem-renaissance
provide friendly URLs for each page of a research guide

Research Guide Titles

the title's most important words should be at the beginning of the title
ex: Abraham Lincoln: A Resource Guide

Research Guide Descriptions

The description should summarize the most important contents of the guide, without restating the title.

Writing Style & Tone

Avoid jargon
Be concise -limit the number of words and sentences
Use the same terms consistently (see Plain Language Action and Information Network, General Services Administration. “Federal Plain Language Guidelines.” Revised May 2011.)
Use active voice
Provide descriptive page titles
Define Acronyms and Abbreviations

All of the above guidelines, with the exception of "use the same terms consistently," come from the following source:

U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services. The Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines, Enlarged/Expanded edition. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2006.

Text

Use bold text sparingly
Use mixed-case for prose text
Use the system default font

The above guidelines are from the following source: