A callout is a short piece of information that draws attention to important content. They should be used sparingly and for a limited time only.
Callout on the page
If the Callout relates to the page as a whole, place it at the top of the page directly under the title and summary section.
On this page
- When to use a callout
- How to add a callout block on a page
- See this live on the CMS Components Guide
When to use a Callout
By design, Callouts display with a grey background and brand dark highlight border on the left edge.
Do
- Use Callouts to call attention to important pieces of information.
- Use a descriptive heading – recommended limit of 50 characters.
- Your body content should be short, clear and easy to scan – recommended limit of 200 characters.
- Your body content should use paragraph formatting.
- Include a link or a call to action (CTA) button if your audience need to learn more or perform an action.
- You should limit your callout to 1 button or 1 link. Multiple links may confuse your audience about what is important or the action they need to take.
- You should use callouts for important messaging that may only apply for a short time, for example, public health notifications.
- You should keep you callout up-to-date or remove it as the information changes.
- If the callout is to be used across multiple pages, consider creating a reusable content block in the Content block library. If you don't have access to this you'll need to submit a request for content support.
Don't
- Use a callout just to create visual interest on the page.
- Make the body content a heading style. Use the paragraph format.
- Use a callout as a heading.
- Use more than 2 callouts per section.
- Use a callout for very long content – callouts have a recommended limit of 200 characters.
- Use multiple callouts on the same page as this may confuse the audience about what is important.
How to add a callout block to your page
Landing page
You can add a Callout block to your Landing page by going to the Layout screen, selecting Add block, then Add Content block and choosing Callout.
Standard page
You can add a Callout block on a Standard page by going to the Edit screen, clicking the Add block dropdown and selecting Add Callout.
Setting up your Callout block
- Give your Callout a descriptive Heading. Recommended limit of 50 characters.
- Add Body text (WYSIWYG) to the Callout. Keep it short and concise. Recommended limit of 200 characters.
- You can add a Call to action (CTA) button. Select the Type of link for your button. You can add a link to another page on nsw.gov.au (Content), a managed link or link to a media library item. Then in the Call to action link field add the URL or search for the asset if the item is within nsw.gov.au. The link will display at the bottom of the callout.
- Save your page to display the callout.
See this live on nsw.gov.au
Visit Callouts to see how this works on a live page.
You can also see live examples of how agencies have added callouts to their content below:
Need any more help?
If you have any questions, or require assistance with anything mentioned in this article, submit a request via the webform.