LibGuides Guidelines: Pages

Web Team Members:

Elizabeth Fox

Adam Hybbert

Kristin Echtenkamp

Shari Theroux (chair)

Scott Cowan

• Keep it simple
• Keep scrolling to a minimum
• Fewer boxes per page is preferable, use pages (tabs) rather than many boxes or lengthy pages
• Keep pages (tabs) limited to 5 or 6 per guide (there should only be 1 row of tabs)
  • Keep page (tab) names simple
  • Don’t link tabs to URLs outside your guide, tabs are meant to navigate within your guide
    • Link to another guide on the page, don't send user to a new guide with no warning
• ​Use scrolling boxes for boxes with a lot of content
  • Keep text to a minimum
• Tabbed boxes can be used to break up large amounts of information
• Links should open in the same tab unless a user is likely to need to go back to the original page frequently
• Current box types include standard (most of what you need including text, images, links, and embedded media), tabbed, gallery, and profile
• It is preferable to put the main content in columns on the left.
  • When guides are viewed on smaller screens, the content in the left-most column will be shown first then moving by column to the right.

• Less is more!
  • Use bulleted lists, subheadings, bolded keywords, etc.  to make the content easily skimmed
• Database names may be confusing so you may need to include short descriptions.
  • Descriptions are limited to 500 characters by LibGuides
  • Pop-up box descriptions can be longer (up to 1000 characters)
• List databases in order of importance, not alphabetically
• Use assets that already exist when possible including database links
  • All LibGuides editors have permission to edit database links
• Images may be uploaded to and stored on the LibGuides system
  • These are assets that may be used by others
• Publicly available videos can be embedded using the embed code from the host site
  • Videos we create should be stored on MyMedia or YouTube
  • You can also link to a video
• Remember that we are librarians and add metadata including subject categories to each page
  • Choose the subjects descriptors for your guide from the existing list 
    • This will allow users to search by subject
  • You may add your own tags