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Grammar and mechanics

We use simple content rules to keep our experience consistent. In some cases, how we approach content online differs from our Canada Post Style Guide.

Sentence case

All of our content uses sentence case, including headers. Sentence case is when we capitalize the first word and all proper nouns in a phrase. We do this to improve readability and make consistency easier.

  • Capitalize the names of products and services that we promote or sell to customers. Some examples include Precision Targeter, Ship from Store, Neighbourhood Mail and Snap Ship.
  • Capitalize our website’s tools and functions such as find a post office or find a postal code.

Contractions

When writing for webpages or applications, we want to keep our tone conversational, so we use contractions regularly.

They’re, it’s, we’re, you’re

The key to using contractions is to ensure that you’re not being too casual. Despite our friendly nature, our users still expect a level of professionalism from us.

Headings and subheadings

Use descriptive headings and subheadings to logically group information on a page or within an application for easy scanning. Each should let users know what they can expect to read.

Keyword and user research should inform the title of a webpage (the H1 tag). In these cases, the H1 has some impact on search ranking and should reflect the label in the navigation to avoid any confusion.

Subsequent headlines should be as concise as possible. Avoid having titles span the entire page or spill over to the next line.

Don’t include periods in headings if they’re a statement, but include a question mark if it’s in the form of a question.

Numbers

Express numbers using digits instead of spelling the word out. The shape of a number helps draw the user’s eye to important information even when it’s with body copy.
  • We deliver 2 out of 3 parcels in Canada.
When a number doesn’t represent an actual fact, but rather a generalization, spell out the word.
  • Our research shows that thousands of Canadians shop online every day.

Lists

Lists help make content easily digestible, succinct and scannable.

List types

  • Use bulleted lists where the order of the items doesn’t matter.
  • Use numbered lists when item order does matter, such as the steps in a process.

Lead-in statement

  • Introduce your list and give it context with a preceding statement. For punctuation, use a colon at the end if it’s a complete sentence. If not, don’t punctuate at the end.

Punctuation for list items

  • Sentence case applies to items in lists, where only the first word and formal nouns are capitalized.
  • Items end with a period only when they are complete sentences.
  • Single words and partial sentences don’t have punctuation at the end.

List structure

Try to make all of your list items structured the same way with parallel sentence construction:

  • All sentences or all fragments
  • All beginning with a verb

List item length

  • Try to keep list items approximately the same length.
  • Generally, 3 points or more work best as lists.

Date and time

Spell out months and days of the week in full for complete clarity.
  • Monday, January 26, 2018
If space is limited, use the international standard YYYY-MM-DD.
  • 2018-02-01
Indicate exact times in numerals, followed by am or pm. Separate hours, minutes and seconds with a colon. In the case of time zones, use the generic (not seasonal) term. For example, use eastern time (ET), and not eastern standard time (EST) or eastern daylight time (EDT), which only run at certain periods of the calendar year.
  • Business hours are 9:30 am to 11:30 pm ET (not EST) on weekdays and 8 am to 8 pm (not 8:00 am to 8:00 pm) ET on weekends.

Links

Write descriptive links that add meaning. Be clear about where the links go, and what the user will find there. Make them succinct and use keywords from the linked page. Descriptive link text makes content comprehensive as users scan pages, assistive technologies read them out and search engines scan them.

If you’re linking to external pages or an external party is linking to us, it can improve SEO if the pages contain related content. This isn’t always possible, but something to keep in mind.

Don’t use URLs as link text; this is called a “naked” link. They don’t add meaning to the content and are too long for users to listen to on screen readers. Generic anchor links like “click here” are unhelpful as well.

Vocabulary

Common expressions and standard labels can be found here. Use them in your copy as the default go-to.

e-commerce (not eCommerce)
email (not e-mail)
e-tailer
fulfill and fulfillment
pick up (verb), pickup (noun), pickup (adj.)
post office box (PO box)
preprint (noun), preprinted (adj.)
sign up/in (verb), sign-up/in (adj.) sheet
U.S. (not USA, except for Canada Post product and service names)

Trademark rules

If a product name is trademarked, you must spell out the full trademarked term in the first instance where it occurs on the page. This doesn’t include the heading (H1) of the page.

The second time the trademarked term appears, you can use a shorten version of the term, but keep the trademark symbol included.

The third time the term appears, you don’t have to include the trademark symbol.

In some cases, the full trademark term includes “Canada Post.”

  • Canada Post Neighbourhood Mail™ (full term) is a great product. With Neighbourhood Mail™ (shortened term), you can reach every Canadian mailbox. Remember, Neighbourhood Mail is great!
In other cases, the full trademark term doesn’t include “Canada Post.”
  • Ship-in-a-click™ (full term) lets you ship parcels within Canada. Use Ship-in-a-click to send socks to your grandkids.
Ask a UX writer for access to our latest list of trademark terms.