Style Guides - writing, instructional, media

[DavidAnderson]

We've received a few requests from users asking about e-learning style guides. Style guide is a general term so I wanted to open it up to the community. This can be anything from ID style guides to media style guides.

Really just want to get an idea of what kinds of style guides:

• you're currently using
• you've used in the past
• you think are most practical

David

[amichels]

We use one for our team and the training - connecting back with our Marketing Dept and their styles. We created many training templates that we needed standards around.

like how to write e-learning (I have already spelled it inconsistently throughout this reply), and other things for our team to be consistent with print and online materials.

We don't really have an Elearning style guide - just because it’s so new in our company - however, we have a standard skin, and beginning few slides that people are encouraged to use if they want it published through the LMS. Now that more than the training development team has Articulate - we don't just want to publish everything and call it "e-learning".

We have a style sheet for our other authoring tools to have consistent Help Systems etc.

We use it for consistency, and it’s a living document that can be added at any time. It was a really big effort, but it’s great for when we hire new people or new people outside of our group are creating documentation or training materials. It’s been really good.

I actually have an action item to add our skin and articulate templates to our style guide (just haven't yet - good reminder!).

[svenushka]

Hi

We use, and have a style guide, but I really like this one.

http://www.bbctraining.com/pdfs/newsstyleguide.pdf

Andy

[GerryWaz]

We have a comprehensive e-learning standards document, where, among other things, we have links to many style and design resources, some of which are internal from our IT usability group (where it makes sense to use for e-learning, like for writing). Other things include media and LMS standards and recommendations.

We put it in a document so it can easily shared outside the company with external developers (except for the links to internal resources). Trying to remember if I posted it here once for someone????

[RedHeadJed]

I like that bbc one. Anyone know if something like that exists for American English?

[DavidAnderson]

Here are a few I've bookmarked:

• Television Scripts - Handbook of Journalism
• Contents | Web Style Guide 3 (web but there's crossover)
• A List Apart: Articles: Writing an Interface Style Guide

[RedHeadJed]

Big time thanks!

[Wayne_in_Austin]

Here's a concise guide to capitalization focusing on titles and headings that I've found both helpful and more interestingly written than usual for these things.

[kthorn]

Through development of an Articulate Guru submission, I used several style guides to help guide me through the project. What I found/learned is they were too generic for my specific project.

So, I ended up creating a style/usage guide specifically for use with Articulate

That said, I intend on creating a template after I finish the project so I must ask for patience until I get it published.

[DavidAnderson]

Think that's a good point Kevin. Templates, style guides are good for standardized projects but can be limiting for new or custom projects.