Style Guide Checklist

Here are some ideas for your style guide. For more details, refer to Chapter 12: Style Guides and the index in the back of the book.

Principles

  • Design or brand guidelines
  • Content or communication principles

Voice and tone

  • This But Not That list
  • Good and bad examples

Content types

  • List of content types
  • Purpose of each content type
  • Readers’ needs or emotional state
  • Style notes
  • Average length
  • Screenshots
  • Good and bad examples

Grammar and usage

  • Abbreviations and acronyms
  • Capitalization
  • Foreign names and phrases
  • Numbers, dates, and times
  • Measurements
  • Punctuation
  • Spelling
  • Word list with important product names, labels, or terms

Web style

  • Titles, headers, and subheaders
  • Block elements like block quotes, lists, tables, and code snippets
  • Image titles, caption length, alt text, and image sizes
  • Text styles: emphasis, italics, footnotes, and so on
  • Keywords to use

Resources

  • Your foundational style guide
  • A brief list of other references
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