Content resources

Plain language

• Federal plain language website

• Digital.gov plain writing checklist

• Center for plain language

• CDC plain language resources, examples and checklists

Books

• Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug (orig. from 2000, foundational piece on web writing and design)

• Content Design by Sarah Richards

• The Elements of Content Strategy, by Erin Kissane

• Plain Words, by Gowers and Fraser

• Content Strategy for Web, by Kristina Halvorson and Melissa Rach

• Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content that Works, by Janice Redish

• Killer Web Content and Transform, by Gerry McGovern

• Designing UX: Forms by Jessica Enders

• Forms that Work, by Caroline Jarrett and Gerry Gaffney

Style guides

• USA.gov bilingual style guide

• 18F content guide

• ‌GPO style guide (pdf to print)

• ‌Austin Digital Services Style Guide

• Shopify Polaris‌

• GDS online forms guide

• US Web Design System

• GOV.UK Design System

• Google’s material design system

• Atlassian’s Writing style

We would like to thank: City of Oakland Style Guide by the Oakland Design League

We stole much of our guide from Oakland's excellent guide‌

The UK government’s Content design: planning, writing and managing content

PDFs

PDFs are hard for many users.

• Nielson Norman group has 20 years of research on why you should avoid them.

How people read online

We write for users who skim content on webpages.

• Nielson Norman group has 20 years of data on how people read

Design systems

• US Web Design System

• GOV.UK Design System

• Google’s material design system

Other resources

• Content Strategy Resources from Qordoba