Style guide

Systems terms

Words and phrases related to digital systems.

Allow list and block list

Use allow list as the noun and allow as the verb. Do not use white list or whitelist.

Use block list as the noun and block as the verb. Do not use black list or blacklist.

Application Capture Tool

Use title case.

Appointment Booking Tool

Use title case.

Dropdown

One word, no hyphen.

Global Unique Identifier

Title case. Do not use acronyms GUI or GUID.

i-Movo (New Payment Exception Service)

Lower case ‘i' and upper case ‘M’. Hyphenate.

Always follow with ‘(New Payment Exception Service)’ in brackets and upper case.

inSight

Lower case ‘i' and upper case ‘S’. No space.

Magnifying glass

The icon in a search bar on a system.

Use: Select the magnifying glass.

Do not use: Spyglass

Manual letters

Not clerical.

On SPM

Use ‘on’ SPM.

Do not use ‘in’ SPM.

Page titles

Page titles should:

be 65 characters or less
be unique, clear and descriptive
be front-loaded and optimised for search
use a colon to break up longer titles
not contain dashes or slashes
not have a full stop at the end
not use acronyms unless they are well-known, like EU

Popup

One word, no hyphen.

R: drive

Upper case ‘R’, space after colon and lower-case ‘d’.

Select and switch

Use select when users choose a specific item.

Do not use click.

Use switch when users move between 2 binary options.

Do not use toggle.

Examples:

Select the supervisor’s name from the list.
Switch the supervisor’s status from ‘Unavailable’ to ‘Available’.

Sign in

Use ‘sign in’ rather than ‘log in’ or ‘login’ to describe users entering their details to access a service.

However, if a system button is titled 'log in', then you can use that term. This is because we refer to system buttons exactly as they appear.

Do not use login as a noun. Say what the user actually needs to enter (like username, password, National Insurance number).

Use:

sign in to Storm with your username and password
select the ‘log in’ button

Do not use:

log in to Storm with your username and password
use your login details

SPM screen names and buttons

Write SPM screen names and buttons:

exactly as they are shown on the system
in single quotation marks

Straight-through processing

Lower case. Hyphenate 'straight-through'.

Do not use acronym STP

Summaries

All summaries should:

end with a full stop
not repeat the title or body text
be clear and specific

Mygov summaries

Summaries should be 140 characters or less.

Operational guidance summaries

Summaries should be between 3 and 255 characters.

Tab

Do not use ‘tab’ when describing steps for navigating SPM.

Use: Select ‘Evidence’.

Do not use: Select the ‘Evidence’ tab.

Text message

Do not use ‘SMS message’.

Tick boxes and checkboxes

An action on online systems and forms.