Website Basics

Standards and Guidelines

To provide a quality experience to our users it is essential that we are consistent in both design and content of our websites. Consistency is the biggest factor that separates a negative experience from a positive one.  

The following are basic guidelines and standards to familiarize yourself when working on your website. 

Quick Tips

  • Think about what you put on your page, keep your audience in mind and be clear and concise in your messaging.
  • All pages on the website should have a consistent look to maintain a consistent brand.
  • The content on your site should be consistent in tone, mood, quality, and quantity.
  • If it’s not ready, don’t include it or don’t publish it.  Don’t use “Coming soon…”, “Under Construction”, or any other similar wording. 
  • Do not include "News" section if you are not going to be updating on a regular basis.

Text Standards

What to do:

  • Use digital brand fonts. All main body text should be Helvetica Neue. All headings should be Proxima Nova. Refer to the for . For the most part these are standard, but in some cases if you copy and paste you may need to clear formatting to set to default text styles.
  • Make sure to proofread all text and perform spell check.
  • Be clear, concise and simple in your copy. Get to the point.
  • Make sure the most important information takes precedence.
  • Put yourself in the shoes of someone coming to your page for the first time – get to know your audiences.
  • Speak to your audience, don’t dumb down your content, but make it as simple and easy to digest as possible.

What not to do:

  • Don’t change the font face.
  • Don’t change the font color.
  • Don’t change the font size outside of the predefined size options.
  • Don’t add background colors to your text.
  • Don’t bold, underline or italicize all your text — if it’s all bold, italicized or underlined, none of it will stand out.
  • Don’t add additional space between characters.
  • Don’t use excessive exclamation points or all caps — your audience will think you’re yelling at them.
  • Do not delete or rename the index file.
    An index file must be present in each directory, adhering to established conventions and best practices! It is a default landing page for that specific directory, and its presence ensures proper functioning, accessibility, and content visibility of your website. 

 

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