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Content design playbook

This playbook helps NPSA staff develop better content and increase engagement with their audience. Following these principles informs how to structure new content and provide a framework for ongoing development

Last Updated 15 November 2023

Writing content for NPSA

We have developed the NPSA content playbook to assist staff in developing clear, easy to understand information. The steps outlined here provide a guide for content owners to follow, outlines the design system and how to meet accessibility requirements. 

This content playbook is continuously updated so we welcome your feedback on how it can be improved.

Please speak to the NPSA communications team for further information.

1 - Start with a user need

When creating content, its important to understand your users. Asking the right questions will help you do that. You'll need to find out:

  • who your likely users are
  • what they're trying to do
  • how they're trying to do it now
  • how their life or work influences what they do and how
  • their current working experience and organisational risks

 

2 - Writing your content

Use the following tips on how to write your content.

Use meaningful headings

Meaningful headings make your content more accessible as they help users navigate the page. You should remember to format headings correctly using markdown.

Newspaper headline image

Explain all abbreviations and acronyms

Before using the acronyms, you should explain the term first and include the acronym in brackets e.g. Operational Requirement (OR). You do not need to explain acronyms that are well known and in common use, such as UK, EU or VAT.

Wooden dice image

Keep sentences short

Read the sentence aloud. If you have to take a breath, you need to shorten or break up the sentence. Avoid wordiness by cutting useless modifiers and breaking up long thoughts into several sentences. If the topic is complicated, balance it by using short sentences to explain things.

Keeping sentences short helps with accessibility.

Blog writing technique

Plain English Examples

Readability: Grade 15

Readability: Grade 10

Using descriptive links helps users know where a link will take them, or what downloadable linked content is. Do not use "click here" as link text.

3 - Meeting accessibility requirements

Content owners should be working to ensure they are following the standard WCAG 2.1 AA, as this is the standard the website needs to adhere to.

Content owners will also need to check that suppliers they are using for content design are following this standard. 

Government regulations require accessiblity to be thought about from the start. More guidance on designing for accessilbility can be found on the gov.uk website. 

Content must be available to at least one of your senses. 

  • e.g. for visual impairments can text be increased in size? For hearing impairments is there a transcript available for a video to be read?

Ensure users can find and use your content, regardless of how they choose to access it. Not everyone uses a mouse, some may have to use a keyboard or speech recognition software.

  • Can your content be accessed using different input devices?

The content needs to be understandable and accessible to a range of cognitive abilities. Can users understand your content and how the service works?

  • Use clear and simple language that's easy to understand, e.g. plain English and short sentences.
  • Make sure interfaces are consistent and predictable.

Webpages need to be built to be compatible with the technologies that people are using. Compatibility with assistive technology agents and can accurately interpret content.

  • Can your content be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents?
  • Does the content work with screen readers or older browsers? 

4 - Style guide principles

When designing your guidance you will have to include disclaimers, Crown copyright and think about how to lay it out on our websites.

Disclaimers and Copyright

Templates and FOW are available for:

  • Disclaimer for use on one-to-many published guidance
  • Handling instructions
  • Disclaimer of liability
  • Endorsements
  • Crown Copyrights

Every piece of work created by NPSA that is shared externally should be marked as Crown copyright so that we are properly asserting our intellectual property rights over the guidance.  

  • Mark your work with the copyright symbol and the year of creation
  • This should be visible on each page of your document 
  • The logo with trademark is used within the Catalogue of Security only

The Comms team can provide you with the appropriate wording templates for your guidance and is also available on SharePoint.

Web page Design

  • Blue banner text provides a brief overview of what the page contains.
  • The Excerpt is pulled in to other pages (such as landing pages and search results) and provide a preview of what the page contains too. In most cases this can be the same as is used in the blue banner. Please note, there are restrictions regarding the length, with a maximum number of characters allowed.
  • All blue banners and excerpts will have no full stops at the end
Page level/layout Modules available to use on the page Page Example
Level one - Mega Menu page

blue banner with excerpt

grid layout displaying all related pages/topics

 Personnel and People Security
Level two landing page

blue banner with excerpt

overview content

grid layout for associated content

 Windows and Glazed Facades
Level three page layout - left hand side navigation

blue banner or optional image with excerpt                                  

side navigation to act as anchor links for longer content pages

include the use of bulleted text and call out quotes

adaptable content blocks that can be used with background image, colour blocks, content with link and images, gradient content and iconography to highlight content

Sub section menus

Tabbed content block

Professionalising Security

Disrupting Hostile Reconnaissance

Marauding Terrorist Attacks

Automatic Access Control Systems
Level three page layout - full width

blue banner or optional image with excerpt 

include the use of bulleted text and call out quotes

adaptable content blocks that can be used with background image, colour blocks and  iconography to highlight content

 Forcible Attack Resistant Material (FARM) Project

5 - Embedding videos within content

Videos can be played using either Vimeo (OS videos) or YouTube (Official videos). Due to accessibility requirements, all videos will require subtitles and transcripts, of which can be easily incorporated in the video modules we have available. Please ensure you provide us with a transcript, even if your video has no narration.

We actively promote use of our YouTube channel and will, by default, publish all Official videos there in addition to the website. Please let us know if you do not want that to happen.

Additional guidance on using videos can be found here (internal use only).

Videos can be displayed in the two ways listed below:

1 - Embedded Video

When using videos within content, we can embed them onto the page where they will appear as full width. This is to meet accessiblity regulations and provide consistency across the platforms. The sample video below shows the correct dimension. You will also see a link to the transcript. Please speak with one of the communications team for further assistance.

2 - Pop-up Video

We can also use our new functionality of the pop-up video. This video can be linked from any word, however, for accessiblity reasons, they must have a transcript attached. 

Please speak with one of the communications team for further assistance.

Think Before You Link Video

6 - Selecting images

These websites provide images, icons, etc to be used within your content. We also hold an image library (internal use only) - anything within the library can be used on the public site or Extranet.

More details about using images on NPSA's websites can be found here (internal use only).

  Description Paid
Unsplash The internets source of freely-usable images. The internet's source of freely-usable images. Free
Pexels Free stock photos, royalty-free images and videos shared by creators. Free
Pixabay Royalty-free images and royalty-free stock. Free
nounproject Icons and Photos For Everything Mixture
freepik.com Graphic resources for everyone - Find Free Vectors, Stock Photos and PSD Free
icons8.com Free icons, photos, etc Free

 

7 - Logo use and brand colours

The NPSA logo is used to distinguish our brand quickly and simply. More information is available in the NPSA Brand Book (available on SharePoint), and there are a few guidelines which should be followed whenever using the logo.

 

8 - Promotion of content on the digital platforms

There are various ways to promote your content on our websites, and these vary depending on whether it is published to the Extranet, Public website or both.

Home slider (Extranet only)

  • Imagery to be provided by content owner or request put to Comms Team (see above for recommended dimensions and sizes)
  • Six home slides at one time
  • Four week duration of home slide
  • Limit banner title four to five words
  • Limit banner description to 15 words
  • Text required is a Title and short description and link to content.
  • Text can be black or white, and be positioned left, right or centre, depending on the image

What's New box (Public website only)

  • Imagery and text is pulled from the landing page, or can be provided by content owner and put to Comms Team
  • Five What's New content boxes at one time
  • Limit excerpt to 22 words
  • On rotation - newest goes first

Featured Guidance (Public website only)

  • For campaigns/guidance collections
  • Five featured guidance pieces displayed at one time
  • Descriptive text (excerpt) is pulled from the landing page
  • Imagery is pulled from the landing page
  • Changed every week

Alert (Extranet only)

  • Send an email alert as a means of making users aware of new content helping them to keep up to date with the latest information
  • Subject of email to be catchy and attention-grabbing
  • Include page title, URL of new/updated page and a short description of your content
  • If the member is not logged in they will need to login before they can view the page
  • Once logged in they will be redirected automatically to the new/updated page
NPSA logo variations
  • Space around the logo - There should be sufficient clear space around the logo to let it breathe and prevent its clarity and visual impact from being obstructed.
  • Logo size -  The logo should be legible at any size. Do not use our full logo unless there is ample space to allow for legibility.
  • Do not stretch or distort the logo.
  • Images uploaded should be 'optimised for web' (i.e. the file size should ideally be under 200kb).
  • Our logo is available in original, white or black depending on the background it is being placed on.
NPSA Colour palette

Use the core and secondary palette of NPSA Brand colours to make your guidance interesting and eye-catching.

  • The colours we use consist of a core palette of 4 colours and is to be used as the foundation for most publications.
  • The secondary palette has been developed to work with the core palette for a variety of graphics and presentations.
  • Refer to the Brand Book for the type/weight and graphical objects should and shouldn’t be used in conjunction with each background colour in order to meet the internationally recognised accessible website guidelines produced by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), working to AA level where possible.

9 - Social Media

NPSA have a LinkedIn channel for organic posts and a YouTube channel to upload OFFICIAL videos.

LinkedIn

NPSAs LinkedIn account is an additional way of sign posting our priority audiences to NPSA advice and guidance.  

Adding hashtags to the LinkedIn post will make your content more discoverable

Any spaces or symbols used within the tag will break the link, this means no spaces, apostrophes, commas, exclamation points, or hyphens.

We recommend using 3 hashtags, 2 of these should be big and broad e.g. #security or #risk, and 1 niche hashtag such as #MaraudingTerroristAttack

The ideal length for a LinkedIn post is around 100 characters. The 'See More' button cuts off messages at about 140 characters. As a general rule of thumb, stick to 25 words or less.

Posts with visual content, such as images and videos, typically result in a 2x higher comment rate.

YouTube

10 - Analytics

The Communications Team provide statistics for NPSA content using multiple web analytics services, for further informaiton on the types of analytics we can provide please read our Guide to Content Analytics.

Graphs
Guide to Content Analytics

The below graphs show the engagement statistics for our platforms so you can publish content at the highest traffic times.

Further tools and resources

  • Hemingway plain english checker tool - The Hemingway app is a third party tool. You must not use it for any sensitive or personal information. You can use the browser-based version, which is free, or the app, which is paid for. Check with your organisation's IT policy if you are unsure.
  • Plain English Campaign - An organisation promoting plain english communications. Their website features resources to help improve your writing.
  • GDS Style Guide - The Government Digital Service style guide covers style, spelling and grammar conventions for all content published on GOV.UK, arranged alphabetically.

 

 

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