Note: Some links to federal government websites may be broken due to presidential executive orders.
Best Practices
Our Collection of Tips and Tricks
Refer to the information here for guidance to develop great pages for your WA Portal audiences.
Helpful headings
Avoid marketing cliches, such as "coming soon" or "register now!" Use exclamation points sparingly and only to evoke caution or urgency about a topic or action.
Best choices for headings are questions, statements, use of numbers, nouns and noun phrases, and action phrases.

Accessible links
Make sure all your links have value to your audience. Provide links to give your audience easy access to additional information that supports or expands on the information in your pages. Don't use links to provide an exhaustive list of all related information. Make sure your links are targeted to your specific audience and information goals.
Include descriptive words in your link hypertext so readers know where the link will take them. Instead of a link that says "Diabetes Information," you might write "CDC Diabetes and Pregnancy webpage."
Instead of | Use |
---|---|
Instead of For COVID-19 resources, click here (or read more). | Use Get COVID-19 resources. |
Instead of See our page about the health care project. | Use
Use the name of the page you are sending people to: Go to the Oral Health page for more information. |
Instead of https://www.doh.wa.gov/ | Use Visit Washington State Department of Health website |
Fascinated by this topic? Read a blog post on the Design & Function website about How People Read on the Web.
DOH staff may want to refer to the general web standards on the Office of Public Affairs & Equity SharePoint site.