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LibGuides Guidelines: Pages

These guidelines are designed to make our LibGuides look and feel like part of our overall web presence. Please adhere to these guidelines as you create your guides.

Web Team

Web Team Members:

Elizabeth Fox

Adam Hybbert

Kristin Echtenkamp

Shari Theroux (chair)

Scott Cowan

 

 

Page Layout

  • 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.

Content

  • 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