LibGuides Content
- For general information guides, the library's hours will be shown underneath the guide title.
- The Special Collections & Archives guide will include the hours for Special Collections.
- The Innovation Studio guide will include hours for the Innovation Studio.
- A note on navigating tabbed boxes for keyboard-only users: Tabs inside a box can be selected by using the arrow keys.
Standard Boxes
- Most pages of the library website use floating boxes, which display the content without a border
- Boxes located underneath the navigation menu that contain brief pieces of information can sometimes include the border. The built-in headings for these are level 2, so any additional headings within a bordered box should start with level 3.
- The top box on each page should have a horizontal line <hr> at the top to add a level of separation from the guide title and description. (This is only needed for floating boxes.)
- Images embedded onto a page must have a margin of at least 5 pixels between the edge of the image and wrapped text.
Gallery Boxes
Click-through carousels and slideshows should be used sparingly. These are typically reserved for collection and exhibit guides that are showcasing various pieces in the library's collections. The Innovation Studio also uses them to showcase projects made with their equipment.
- All slides should include captions.
- Note: Alt text for each image should not repeat information from the caption. If the caption is describing the primary content in an image, then the alt text should focus on the visual elements that would not be perceived by a visually impaired user.
- Slides should never be set to automatically advance. This kind of animated content is not accessible.
- Carousels should always be preceded by instructions that tell users how to view content:
- "Select arrows to view more images." and/or "Select image to view larger version."
- Carousels should always show the dot navigation indicators.
- Consider whether a carousel is truly the best option to present the content.
Reusable Content
Boxes and assets should be reused and mapped across guides whenever possible. When information is updated in an original asset or box, all of the mapped versions automatically update, eliminating the need to update the information on multiple pages. Reusable content includes, but is not limited to:
- Boxes containing general library information, such as ILL instructions or department hours
- Boxes containing widgets or search boxes
- Documents, such as handouts and policies
- Links to commonly used library resources and services
- Links to web forms
Whenever possible, links that will appear in multiple places should be created as assets instead of embedded in the paragraph text.
