Creating and publishing content

Before you start

Before you write and design your content, make sure you read the Government Digital Service Style guide

Content types

You need to think about which content type best meets the user need.

You also need to consider the journey the user takes to get to your content. Make sure it is logical and consistent.

Avoid PDFs

Content should be web pages (HTML) rather than PDFs as they aren’t accessible.

The problem with PDF’s

PDFs are not the best solution because:

• assistive technologies such as screen readers find it much easier to read content on a webpage
• the content can’t be searched by Google or the website search
• they are not designed to be read on mobile devices
• they can quickly become out of date with broken links

When to use a PDF

PDFs should only be used:

• if there is a clear user need, with evidence to support it
• when there is a legal requirement to have a formal document
• a specific audience that need a special format, like an Easy Read document

The legislation says that if you create a new PDF it must be fully accessible. Use the guidance on creating an accessible PDF to help you.

Old PDFs

PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 are exempt from the 23 September 2020 deadline, unless users need them in order to use a service.

Old PDFs should be replaced with a HTML web page or deleted if they are not needed.

Use the acceptance criteria

The user needs acceptance criteria becomes the structure of your content. Use it as a checklist to make sure content is meeting the user needs.

Before you publish

Before publishing content, you should get someone else to check the content. We call this peer review.

The review will check that the content meets a user need and there are no errors and inaccuracies.