Cardiff Council Content and design system

www.cardiff.gov.uk

Content

Style guide

LinksFormatting text (using bold, italic and underlined text)Abbreviations and acronymsAlternative textBulleted listsCapital lettersDates, times, phone numbers and addressesHeadingsActive languagePunctuationSentence structure

Plain language

Plain language

Content principles

Online content principlesCreate accessible documents

Content formats

PDFs and other documentsEmbedding videos

Sentence structure

We use plain and accessible language. We want users to understand any information the first time they read it.

As we write, we check over our content to see if we can cut it down anywhere. Reading it aloud can be useful to see where a sentence is too long or does not read well.

We break up sentences where possible, as long sentences are difficult to read.

This makes the content more accessible, and is easier for people to scan for a specific piece of information.