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LibGuides Best Practices: Types of Boxes

Standard Box

What is a standard box?

A standard box is likely the most common box type you'll use, as it allows you to add assets and Rich Text/HTML content to your pages. A standard box is flat, in the sense that the content you add displays directly on the page. This is in contrast to a tabbed box, which allows you to divide content in the box across multiple tabs. For adding simple content to your guide, therefore, a standard box is always a good option as it will give you the simplest layout.

Tabbed Box

What is a tabbed box?

A tabbed box allows you to divide content in a box across multiple tabs -- in other words, it's like having multiple standard boxes stack on top of each other. When a user clicks a tab in the box, then they will see the content added under that tab.

Tabbed boxes work best when you group similar content together. For example, if you had a box listing databases for a particular subject, you could have tabs for:

  • Full Text Resources
  • Abstracts & Indexes
  • Primary Sources
  • Media

As helpful as tabbed boxes can be, however, avoid having too many tabs in one box because it can make content difficult to find. Try to also keep the names of your tabs succinct to avoid the tabs displaying on multiple rows.

Gallery Box

What is a gallery box?

You can create galleries of images, books, databases, guides, and/or LibCal Events using the Gallery box type. It's easy to set up, you can mix and match any of the mentioned content items, and control settings like slide/transition speed, number of slides that appear at once, navigation dots, captions, and more.

The Gallery box was built with accessibility in mind, though (as with most other areas of the system) exactly how accessible it remains largely depends on what's added. For example: the box is accessible via keyboard and screen reader; an Alt Text field is available for all images; the left / right arrows on the box (to denote navigation between slides), dots (also denoting navigation / more slides), and captions do not overlap images.

An Example of a Standard Box--Course Description

This course surveys Native North American art from prehistoric artifacts to present day artworks. Major regional areas of study include the arts of the Eastern Woodlands, Great Plains, Northwest Coast, Southwest, and Mexico. Study focuses upon artworks within their historical and social context and the aesthetic, cultural, and symbolic meanings of traditional and contemporary North American Indian art.

 

 

 

 

Example of a Tabbed Box--Bureau of American Ethnology Ethnologists

Example of a Gallery Box