Best Practices
As you may have noticed if you're only skimming through this guide, people consume web content differently from other written forms of media, such as books. Many visitors come to a website to complete a specific task and are just looking for signs that they are on the right track toward the answer. For this reason, simplicity and clarity are extremely important for making sure that your website meets the needs of your visitors. Here are a few key thoughts to keep in mind when writing your web content.
- Bulleted lists are often easier to scan than full paragraphs.
- Paragraphs can benefit from being shorter: 1-3 sentences, with the first one being the most important idea or concept.
- Use headings liberally to break up your content and make it easier for users to spot the information that's relevant to them. Accordions are another good way to facilitate this for pages with lots of text.
- Use headings sequentially and hierarchically. Heading 3s should appear under Heading 2s, Heading 4s should appear under Heading 3s and so on. Screen readers and other assistive devices use these to demonstrate the structure of the page to visitors with visual impairments.
- Using descriptive link text can make pages easier to scan. Since links often catch the eye, it's more useful to include a link such as "View the latest report" than a link like, "Click here to view the latest report." A longer link also makes it easier to click on, which is especially helpful for those on mobile devices.
RUSH Editorial Style
RUSH has a style guide that applies to all text on the RUSH University website. Please review and bookmark this condensed version of the style guide (RUSH login required) to learn the standards for:
- Acronyms
- Degrees, Affiliations and Titles
- Departments, sections, programs, centers and committees
- Punctuation
- Referring to RUSH and its colleges
- and more
The most common style-related mistake made on the site has to do with how doctors are referenced. Please do not refer to anyone as “Dr. (Last Name)” in copy. Instead, the first mention of a doctor should follow this format: “Jane Smith, MD, PhD”. Subsequent references to the doctor will just include their last name. Here’s an example:
"Jane Smith, MD, PhD, associate professor in the Graduate College, helped develop a new student group for students interested in leveraging computer programming in research. Smith first joined RUSH University in 1993."