Updates: Content design: planning, writing and managing content
2024
Added a new section about fatality notices.
2023
Updated guidance on what to use a document collection for to include grouping related content on a topic
Information added on the GovSearch tool.
Added information about licence pages.
Organising and grouping content on GOV.UK
Changed ## Document collections to remove guidance saying that this content type cannot be used to group content thematically (because document collections can be used to group content thematically).
Updated the good example for the promotional material content type.
Information on Call for evidence, a new content type in Whitehall.
Withdrawing or unpublishing content, and content from previous governments
Under 'Unpublishing content items', document collections added to list of content types that users who have subscribed to email updates about that page will be notified about when the page is unpublished.
Document collections added to examples of content types that need change notes.
Added information on adding a review date to your content in the Understanding the content lifecycle section.
Information about adding an optional review date which is a new feature in Whitehall.
Updated how lead images are used in the following content types:
* Case study
* News article : government response
* News article : news story
* News article : press release
Restructured to expand the section on using charts, diagrams, infographics and scientific equations as images. Clarified alt text should only be used in the body text and there is no need to use the alt text field.
2022
Updated the guidance on headings in the 'Structuring your content' section to make the rules around heading levels clearer.
Section not new - just reordered.
Updated with a new section on how to link to documents on other websites.
Added a new 'Publication: maps' section, as this publication type was missing from the previous content.
Added information to the ‘headings’ section about not using questions in headings and subheadings.
Campaigns on GOV.UK: standards and guidelines
The section has been updated with amended guidance on getting your campaign online and managing it once it's live.
New section added on what can and cannot be published during the national mourning period following the death of HM The Queen.
Updated with new guidance on how to make images accessible, with more detail about how and when to use alt text, and how to describe images that present a lot of data, such as graphs and diagrams. The section on copyright is unchanged.
Added a section on linking to a page in a different language. This is because a link text must accurately describe the link destination for accessibility and prepare the users for a language change in their journey.
New guidance has been added on how to get an exemption for publishing new content somewhere other than on GOV.UK, and what to do if you don't get one.
Updated the headings section to clarify whether text is always necessary between headings for accessibility.
Removing examples in the 'Summaries' section that are no longer accurate. Making the information in the 'Titles' section more concise. Fixing several broken links.
Added link to more government digital accessibility guidance and to sign-up form to receive updates.
Withdrawing or unpublishing content, and content from previous governments
Updated guidance on unpublishing content items to explain that users will get an email update if a publication, consultation or detailed guide they've subscribed to is unpublished or redirected.
Added good example of an Organisation page.
Changed link to example of a good 'Our governance' content type.
2021
Added information so content designers know to avoid using one word links
Added a video on how a screenreader interacts with headings structures to show why a proper heading strcuture is important.
Added examples of what corporate information will display on an organisation page, and that you should include an organisation chart.
Specified that all featured management members should have their photo displayed on the organisation page.
Updated the instructions on using Google Ads. Removed examples that relied on PDFs of screenshots. Removed sections on the 'performance platform' and 'info pages'.
Updated legal information on duplicate page titles.
[Links](/guidance/content-design/links)
Added guidance on linking to attachments.
Added a link to the Guidance and tools for digital accessibility under accessibility and removed the existing links to various manuals.
Changes to the ‘Graphs and charts’ section: More guidance on how to produce accessible graphs and charts. How and why to use an SVG image file. Why pie charts are not accessible. Further guidance on describing visual information as text.
Updated guidance about open formats especially for documents designed to be edited such as forms.
Updated general guidance in 'Publications' on file formats including HTML, forms and PDFs. Updated the ‘Publication: Forms’ section with a better example and also linked to instructions on how to create a simple OpenDocument form.
Helping users prepare for change
Removed last section 'Preparing users for changes related to the end of the transition period with the EU'.
Updated the URL standards for GOV.UK. Made changes to the format.
Adding guidance on anchor links
Link added to further guidance on publishing easy read images.
Updated content type examples to live pages
Do not add alt text for Easy Read images. The concept or task should be explained in the words which accompany the image.
'Whitehall publisher: publish documents designed for print as PDF' - included Official documents as an example of documents which can be published as PDF
Added a section on using sub-headings before a start button.
Guidance added on sub-headings before a start button and accessibility.
2020
PDFs on GOV.UK must either become HTML, or have an HTML or other OpenDocument version to meet accessibility standards
PDFs on GOV.UK must either become HTML or have an HTML or other OpenDocument version to meet accessibility standards
Helping users prepare for change
In the new section “If the rules depend on whether a user is covered by the withdrawal agreement”: Added details on how to write about the withdrawal agreement.
Helping users prepare for change
Content related to the end of the transition period should now be tagged to 'Brexit transition: new rules for 2021' rather than 'UK and EU transition: new rules for 2021'.
Helping users prepare for change
In sections 1, 3 and ‘Preparing users for changes related to the end of the transition period with the EU’: Clarified the differences between handling specialist (Whitehall) and mainstream content which will change as a result of the end of the transition period.
All other changes are updates to sections of ‘Preparing users for changes related to the end of the transition period with the EU’.
In ‘Planning and writing post-transition content’: All topics affected by transition must have post-transition content based on the rules which will apply from January 2021. This content should not be withdrawn or unpublished without agreement from the Brexit content team at GDS.
In ‘Planning and writing post-transition content’: Publishers should not create post-transition pages to summarise and link to other post-transition content across different topics for a specific sector or user group.
In ‘Creating a separate post-transition page’: Publishers do not need to use the post-transition call-out box on document collection pages.
In the new section on ‘Reassuring users that nothing has changed yet’: It's no longer necessary to restrict reassurance content to a line at the top of the page, but it should still only be added if there's a genuine user need. Reassurance content should focus on the user not the government. It should not explain why nothing has changed, for example by referring to the Withdrawal Agreement.
In the new section on ‘Updating post-transition content’: Added details about how to request a change to the transition checker service, and how to report changes which might affect the checker or have an impact on cross-government communications activities.
Helping users prepare for change
Content related to the end of the transition period should now be tagged to 'UK and EU transition: new rules for 2021' rather than 'transition period'.
Reworked advice on headings to make sure content is presented accessibly, including why using bold for headings causes accessibility problems.
Updates to blogging guidance to reflect changed processes.
Accessibility changes: improved guidance on how to make titles unique and check they're not already in use
Accessibility change: tables with headings in the first column must use the heading Markdown: #
Added a video link showing how screen readers use headings to make table content accessible.
Added links to guidance on how to plan and create content to help users prepare for policy changes, including changes related to the end of the transition period with the EU.
Accessibility change: how to use headings to make tables accessible.
Added an explanation of where links to corporate information pages show automatically on organisation and about us pages.
Updated the guidance to: write image descriptions in the body text so they’re available to more people, and leave the 'Alt text' field empty so screen reading software skips it.
Helping users prepare for change
Added new 'Helping users prepare for change' section.
Removed guidance about 'policies' and 'sub-policies' as these content types are no longer available.
Updated to include: information on where change notes trigger email alerts, new sections on how and when to use change notes, additional examples.
Updated section slug from guidance/content-design/image-copyright-standards-for-gov-uk to guidance/content-design/images
Telling users about changes resulting from Brexit
Removing out of date Brexit publishing guidance.
Withdrawing or unpublishing content, and content from previous governments
We now cross reference the full guidance on history mode instead of including it in 2 places.
Removed information about corporate reports appearing on organisation pages as it was out of date.
2019
Telling users about changes resulting from Brexit
Changed 'the UK leaving the EU' to 'Brexit' in some places as it’s a more commonly used term.
Changed 'the UK leaving the EU' to 'Brexit' in the link text to match the updated title of the linked guidance
Added instructions on how to download a list of all content using the Content Data tool.
Added information on how to use the Content Data tool to check that content is working for users.
Added guidance on how to download a list of pages using Content Data.
Added Content Data as a tool to support content design
Updated with guidance about using the Content Data tool.
Updated alt text guidance to clarify that - if the information contained in an image is already covered by surrounding text content - you should not duplicate it in the alt text.
Organising and grouping content on GOV.UK
Updated information about document collections to expand what content can be added.
Updated guidelines for organisation and sub-organisation short urls in the 'URL standards for GOV.UK' section of the manual. Organisation and sub-organisation short URLs should use whole words where possible and only use acronyms if they're well known.
Added link to linking guidance.
Information added on the new Corporate information: accessible documents policy format.
Removed reference to ‘campaign pages’ as they are no longer available on GOV.UK.
Campaigns on GOV.UK: standards and guidelines
Removed references to ‘campaign pages’ as these are no longer available on GOV.UK.
Changed command paper prefix from 'Cm' to 'CP'.
Improving links between guidance pages on publishing images.
Withdrawing and unpublishing (removing) content, and labelling content from previous governments
Changed 'remove' to 'unpublish'. Unpublish is the term used in the publishing workflow.
Organising and grouping content on GOV.UK
Add an onward link to request a new or existing topic to the topic taxonomy (http://www.gov.uk/guidance/contact-the-government-digital-service/request-a-thing#topics), and another link to the taxonomy principles (http://www.gov.uk/government/publications/govuk-topic-taxonomy-principles/govuk-taxonomy-principles).
The 'external linking policy' has been rewritten for clarity. The policy remains the same.
New guidance added about when and how to use diagrams on GOV.UK, including how to make them accessible.
2018
Telling users about changes resulting from the UK leaving the EU
New section added.
Several changes to the "Creating and editing blog posts" section. New sections added on breaking up text, featured posts and link text. Expanded the guidance on excerpt text, calls to action and updated guidance on images, titles and social media. Removed sections on social media widgets, Twitter feeds and image formats.
Added 'Publication: official documents' to the content types section, with instructions on what to include in HTML versions of official documents.
Organising and grouping content on GOV.UK
Removed guidance about policies and policy areas because they're about to be retired from GOV.UK.
Added section about providing links in context at the top of the page.
Added guidance on how to structure a document collection to help users find content easier on a collection page.
Organising and grouping content on GOV.UK
Added guidance for when not to use a document collection for content that's too long and complex or takes a user through a task.
Removed guidance on sub-topics.
Organising and grouping content on GOV.UK
Added guidance about using topics to group and organise all content. Removed guidance about legacy topic pages (specialist sectors) and policies.
Added a new section to explain when to tell users about a scheme or process changing in the future.
Added examples of how to link to third party services.
Rewritten copyright guidance in plain English.
Update to the 'Planning content’ section. Expanded definitions of 'guidance for mainstream users' and 'guidance for specialist users', including who the users are and how each type of guidance is written, organised and managed.
Withdrawing and removing content, and labelling content from previous governments
Added the situations when you can edit withdrawn content: to fix a broken link, edit a typo or improve the title or summary
Withdrawing and removing content, and labelling content from previous governments
Rewritten guide on when to withdraw or remove (formerly 'unpublish') content. It now includes more circumstances in which it's ok to withdraw and remove content from GOV.UK.
Edited 'Publication' content type guidance under the 'Attachments' heading to explain when to use multiple attachments on a publication page and how to use the translations feature to add the same attachment in different languages.
We've updated our guidance about contractions. We now recommend avoiding negative contractions like can't and don't.
Open formats guidance updated: attachments must be published using open file formats.
Added a paragraph at the start of the guidance to explain the importance of choosing the right format when publishing content on GOV.UK.
Changed the link for the best practice example of a consultation.
The title and summary guidance in the 'Writing for GOV.UK' manual is now split into two sections. Both sections have been updated with new examples and extra guidance we found was missing.
Under 'News article: news story' added guidance on how having guidance in a news story could cause users to act on something that's incorrect.
2017
Revised guidance on change notes to make it clearer when you should leave a change note and what it should contain.
Under 'Email alerts', clarified the process for triggering a notification within Whitehall Publisher (select 'Alert the public to what's changed').
Added guidance about when to use multiple attachments in a publication.
Increasing the character limit for summaries on Publications and News stories (from 140 to 160), to reflect typical display length in Google search results.
Campaigns on GOV.UK: standards and guidelines
Added extra notes to the 'Campaigns on GOV.UK' section. There are now links about using social media, a reminder to include information about spend approval when requesting a campaign, and the instruction to follow the design principles as well as the style guide.
Increasing the character limit for page summaries from 140 to 160.
New high-level definition of 'policy paper' and 'detailed guidance'. This includes instructions to remove guidance from the policy paper format and put it into the guidance format.
Added reminder to consider publishing content on mainstream instead of using a detailed guide.
In the blog Twitter card settings, the 'excerpt' needs to be set to 'no'.
Corrections and updates to instructions, including making use of 'excerpts', and checking blog performance.
Added bullet point under Manuals content type.
Don't use for:
* internal guidance, unless there's a legal requirement to do so (for example HMRC manuals)
Change made to the 'Documents designed to be viewed' section in 'Open formats'. A link has been added to information about the PDF/A standard, and we have made it clearer that the PDF/A standard is not related to accessibility.
Withdrawing and unpublishing content, and labelling content from previous governments
Added some clarification to withdraw and unpublish guidance, including when not to withdraw content, and unpublishing pages that mention convictions.
Added a good example of an HTML publication in Content types > Publications.
We've removed point 5b ('we will ensure external links are always accompanied by the external link icon to help make it clear to users that they are leaving GOV.UK'). This icon is no longer being used.
2016
Updated the good example of a user need.
Updated the policy and moved guidance on how to translate content
Adding a detail about the 'Average time on page' metric and the units it uses.
Removed "Use [...] ‘like’ instead of ‘such as’" to be consistent with new style guidance on use of eg, ie and etc.
Changes made to include guidance about when mainstream content is appropriate.
New chapters have been added:
+ What to publish on GOV.UK
+ Where to put guidance content on GOV.UK
+ Content that helps users understand what government is doing
Removed Worldwide priority details as the content type is no longer available.
Withdrawing and unpublishing content, and labelling content from previous governments
Updated guidance on withdrawing and unpublishing content, and content from previous governments
Added section in blogging about how to close a blog
Added guidance on when to use a 'corporate information: membership' page.
Added new section on when to do user research.
Organising and grouping content on GOV.UK
New guidance on how to use the different grouping formats on GOV.UK: topics, policies and collections.
GOV.UK content retention and withdrawal ('archiving') policy
Updated 'How to unpublish content’ to clarify that managing editors can unpublish content themselves.
Updated section on Feedback Explorer to include how to filter by Whitehall pages and export as CSV.
Use of European Union funding logos on GOV.UK
New section added about the use of European Union funding logos.
New section added.
2015
Updated Welsh language on GOV.UK with new policy.
Added good examples of:
- statistics at [department]
- statistics announcements
Updated examples of content types for:
* corporate information about us
* corporate information: complaints procedure
* corporate information: equality and diversity
* corporate information: our governance
* corporate information: energy use
* corporate information: procurement at
* corporate information: publication scheme
* corporate information: research at
* corporate information: working for
* corporate information: Welsh language scheme
* detailed guide
* document collection
* events
* events collection
* group
* manual
* news article: government response
* news article: news story
* news article: press release
* person
* role
* publication: corporate report
* publication: correspondence letter
* publication: correspondence bulletin
* publication: form
* publication: Freedom of Information (FOI) release
* publication: guidance
* publication: impact assessment
* publication: independent report
* publication: notice
* publication: policy paper
* publication: promotional material
* publication: research and analysis
* publication: transparency data
* speech: speaking note
* sub-topic
* worldwide priority
Corporate information about us
Corporate information: complaints procedure
Corporate information: equality and diversity
Corporate information: our governance
Corporate information: energy use
Corporate information: procurement at
Corporate information: publication scheme
Corporate information: research at
Corporate information: working for
Corporate information: Welsh language scheme
Detailed guide
Document collection
Events
Events collection
Group
Manual
News article: government response
News article: news story
News article: press release
Person
Role
Publication: corporate report
Publication: correspondence letter
Publication: correspondence bulletin
Publication: form
Publication: Freedom of Information (FOI) release
Publication: guidance
Publication: impact assessment
Publication: independent report
Publication: notice
Publication: policy paper
Publication: promotional material
Publication: research and analysis
Publication: transparency data
Speech: speaking note
Sub-topic
Worldwide priority
Added guidance about info pages and how to use them.
Added new section on content types to use when publishing policy information.
Revised information on the policy format as this has changed, plus extra information about how policy papers can be used for different purposes.
Added guidance on how to create a trending searches dashboard, to help identify user needs that are new or growing in popularity
GOV.UK content retention and withdrawal ('archiving') policy
New section added.
Guidance on blogging updated.
Content type: topical event pages added.
Change notes guidance added.
2014
New section added on tables.
Added section on events (this is interim guidance using the news content type).
Added 'about our services' guidance.
Information on open formats updated
Added guidance on acceptance criteria, defining the user and active user needs.
Added guidance on using Feedback explorer
Listed some of the main sources of information and research that support the GDS style and approach to content design.
Added the sub-topic content type guidance.
Guidance on manuals added
Added best practice example of the 'media enquiries' content type.
Guidance on decisions, notices and regulations added.
New section added.
New section added.
New section added.
New section added.
New section added.
Use of government logos on GOV.UK
New section added.
New section added.
New section added.
Image copyright standards for GOV.UK
New section added.
Campaigns on GOV.UK: standards and guidelines
New section added.
New section added.
New section added.
New section added.
New section added.