Update USWDS Style Guide

[sarah-sch]

Problem to be solved

USWDS don't have a comprehensive, up-to-date website content style guide.

Background

USWDS has multiple brief editorial style guides that haven't been regularly updated or socialized with the team. The dev team maintains two code style guides. All of these style guides are listed below.

• USWDS website editorial style and content guide
• USWDS editorial style guide for component pages
• USWDS public discussions guidance (created in 2023 and currently in review)
• SASS/CSS code style guide
• JS code style guide

Goals

Develop a source-of-truth editorial style guide including

• brand voice and tone guidance
• a definitive answer as to which established style guides the team should defer to for questions not answered by our own document (e.g., Digital.gov and then AP)
• guidance surrounding grammar, punctuation, and other mechanics issues
• a regularly updated word list
• guidance surrounding how technical information such as code should be displayed on the USWDS website

###Work to be done

• - Compare Digital.gov and 18F style guides to determine major differences and which one we wan to use as our "parent guide"
• - Revisit and align on USWDS brand voice and tone guidance #345
• - Take stock of existing style guidance and determine what to keep
• - Build on existing guidance to create complete style guidance including work list, grammar and mechanics guidance, and guidance for talking about technical information such as code
• - Socialize style guide with full team
• - Where needed, update website to align with new guidance