Banner

Banners should:

• Be placed in the appropriate context:
  • Banners relevant to an entire page should be placed at the top of that page, below the page header. They should occupy the full width of the content area.
  • Banners related to a section of a page (like a card, popover, or modal) should be placed inside that section, below any section heading. These banners have less spacing and a pared-back design to fit within a content context.
  • Banners related to an element more specific that a section should be placed immediately above or below that element.
• Focus on a single theme, piece of information, or required action to avoid overwhelming merchants.
• Be dismissible unless they contain critical information or an important step merchants need to take.
• Be concise and scannable—merchants shouldn’t need to spend a lot of time figuring out what they need to know and do.
• Be limited to a few important calls to action with no more than one primary action.
• Be used thoughtfully and sparingly for only the most important information.
• Not be used as the primary entry point to information or actions merchants need on a regular basis.
• Not be used for marketing information or upsell—use callout cards instead.
• Use the default icon for success, info, warning and critical statuses. If the icon is changed, use only major, duotone icons.

Headings

Banner headings should be:

• Descriptive: help merchants understand what they’ll find in the card.
  • Communicate when a situation is serious enough to warrant using a critical or warning banner. People who are unable to see the color of the banner need to clearly understand the importance of the situation without the benefit of seeing the color of the banner. Learn more about accessibility.

• Concise and scannable:

  • Use simple, clear language that can be read at a glance
  • Keep headings to a single sentence and avoid using punctuation such as periods, commas, or semicolons
  • Where possible, avoid articles (the, a, an) to keep content short and actionable
  • Avoid unnecessary terms, for example don’t use “successfully” in banners that confirm an action

• Informative:

  • Label the type of information in the body content
  • Sentence case: capitalize only the first word in the heading and proper nouns

Body content

Body content should:

• Be concise: keep content to 1 to 2 sentences where possible
• Clarify the benefit of the main task
• Be written in sentence case and use appropriate punctuation
• Avoid repeating the heading
• Explain how to resolve the issue, particularly for warning and critical banners

Button and links

Buttons and links should be:

• Clear and predictable: merchants should be able to anticipate what will happen when they click a button. Never deceive merchants by mislabeling a button.

• Action-led: buttons should always lead with a strong verb that encourages action. To provide enough context to merchants use the {verb}+{noun} format on buttons except in the case of common actions like Save, Close, Cancel, or OK.

• Scannable: avoid unnecessary words and articles such as the, an, or a.

Link text should:

• Set the expectation of where merchants will be taken

• Use consistent content to label navigation. For example, if a navigational link leads to a page called Orders, label the link Orders.

Secondary body content

Body content should be:

• Actionable: start sentences with imperative verbs when telling merchants what actions are available to them (especially something new). Don’t use permissive language like “you can”.

• Structured for merchant success: always put the most critical information first.
• Clear: use the verb “need” to help merchants understand when they’re required to do something.

• To inform merchants about a new feature or opportunity, use callout cards
• To group similar concepts together in the interface, use a card