Principle #4: Be consistent
Presenting material consistently is fundamental to all good writing and publishing. It is particularly important in the web environment where most readers depend on visual cues to orient themselves. It also helps them understand the navigation and grasp the overall structure of a site, and to react intuitively to unfamiliar parts of it.
To reduce visual 'clutter' on a webpage, maintain consistency in:
- capitalisation of navigation labels, page titles, headings and subheadings
- punctuation (especially of bulleted lists).
So that readers can focus on the content, maintain consistency:
- in the meaning of terms
- in writing style (keep tense and person constant)
- between the navigation label and the page it links to (so that the reader knows they have reached the desired page).
Just as the CUE standard controls the consistency of the font style and weight, layout and functionality of websites, consistent style, graphic treatment, and overall structure also help provide a consistent user experience.
