Best Practices

General Guidelines

• Put the most important text at the top of the page in Column 1.
• Update pages regularly and remove outdated content promptly (e.g., past events).
• Keep content concise and easy to read.
• In general, use easy to understand (short) words, short sentences, and short paragraphs.
• Use bulleted lists when possible instead of long paragraphs.
• Don’t overuse formatting (bold, italics, headings, etc).
• Add links to relevant information
  • Example: If your text mentions “financial aid,” link to the Tuition & Financial Aid site.

Formatting text in the WYSIWYG:

Main/Body Text

• Use the “Paragraph” setting (under the format drop-down menu)
• Applies the correct font, color, and line spacing

Bold, Italics, CAPS and !

• To draw attention to text, use the bold or italics attributes.
• Don’t use ALL CAPS. (Denotes yelling.)
• Use exclamation points sparingly. (Also denotes yelling.)

Strikethrough

• Use the the strikethrough attribute sparingly (e.g., to point out a temporary change).
  • Example:
    Willamette T-Shirts: $22.50 Now $12.99

Text alignment:

• Default/automatic setting is left-justified
• Use centered and right-aligned text very sparingly
• Avoid full justification of text

Headings

• Use Headings to help break up text into sections and increase readability.
• Start with Heading 2
  • Page titles are automatically formatted as Heading 1
  • Don’t use additional Heading 1 tags on the page
  • It’s okay to use multiple instances of the other Heading tags
• Use heading tags in numerical order on the page
  • H2 is first (the page title is already H1), H3 follows H2, etc.
  • Try not to skip heading levels (e.g., H1 directly to H3)
• Rarely use H5 and H6
  • Can make the page look cluttered and unorganized

Buttons:

• Apply by selecting “Button” from the “Class” drop-down menu in the link settings
• Use sparingly
• Only apply to short text (1-5 words) that is on a line by itself, not within a paragraph.

Good example:

Register now

Bad example:

New students can register now for fall classes.

• Best to start with an action verb
  • Good examples:
    • Register now
    • View all events
    • Subscribe for updates
  • Bad example: Click here
• More information about adding links

Paste as Plain Text Mode:

• Enable (click) before pasting text from another source to your web page (e.g., MS Word, Email, or a Google Document).
• Removes formatting that is meant for a printer (not for web pages)
• More information about importing text

Tables

• Used for displaying text in columnar format
• Web pages don’t recognize tabs for aligning text in columns
• Please notify Web Applications when a table is added to a web page, so responsive formatting can be applied
• More information about tables

Additional Resources

Willamette Style Guides:

• Writing Style Guide
• Brand Guidelines