style guides

WHAT’S IN A STYLE GUIDE?

The HealthSparqOne style guide is a resource for writers, designers, UI developers and customers. Web content is very subjective and not everything will look the same all of the time. Conversely, everything needs to look consistent and cohesive and as if it was meant to be. There are some high-level guidelines we use to maintain consistency and you’ll find them here.

Voice

We strive for an eighth grade reading level in all newly written content. We embrace plain language to try to simplify complex health care language as much as possible. Where jargon can’t be avoided, we use proper medical terms and include definitions.

For more complex content, make sure it isn’t surfaced right away and offer additional explanation (“learn more” page or tool tips) to help users understand what they are reading. Disclaimer language should be used in the footer or in important notes only. See the Voice and Tone Guidelines for more details and examples.

We work to keep new content active, engaging and conversational. We avoid use of the first person and we easily integrate into client websites.

Grammar

When in doubt, default is AP

Colon precedes bulleted lists

One space after periods

We're not too formal here- we mostly use contractions as part of our plain language initiative.

Style

Creating content that is easy to scan, navigate and read is our top priority. While it depends upon the nature of the content, and nothing is ever set in stone, some guidelines for writing for the web never seem to go out of style.

Prior to publication, long sentences will become two or three sentences to improve readability. Lengthy paragraphs will be split into multiple paragraphs. Headings, when appropriate and useful, will be used to make the paragraphs easier to scan.