An official website of the United States government
Event Calendar
Best Practices
Overview
The event calendar provides an engaging way to inform site visitors of upcoming events. The static image below shows a calendar landing page. The site visitor can click on a “Details” link to get more information and add the event to his or her calendar. To interact with a “live” calendar, see the example at the bottom of this page.
Go to Examples
- Go to ExamplesSee examples on this page that illustrate key options.
- Building in the WCMSSee key tips and guidelines for working with events in the WCMS.
- TP4 UX Best Practices [PPT - 14 MB]For general guidance on colors, layouts, and overall presentation, see this overview of TP4 best practices.
Guidance
- By default, a WCMS event calendar displays all events published on the site. Using event categories, you can create multiple calendar modules on a site, with each calendar showing a subset of events based on event categories. For more information on event categories and managing multiple calendars, see “Building in the WCMS.”
- By applying event categories to events, you can give calendar users the option of filtering events by category.
- Plan to use the full page width for the calendar. (The events on the calendar are auto-formatted. To create an event, a WCMS user completes a form with venue, POC, and other details. For more information, see Building in the WCMS.)
- For each event, pick an engaging high-quality image. Avoid images with words. (Event images are optional, but they help visitors scan the calendar and they engage visitors.)
- There are no hard-fast rules for image aspect ratio, but 4:3 works well. Minimum size for optimal display is 400×300.
- Use a brief, direct title for each event. Save the details for the description.
- In the description, include key information in first two to three sentences.
- Include a full address in the event address fields. This allows mobile devices to link directly to a map application.