These videos are supplemental learning tools that help you understand how Sitecore works and how to apply CT.gov standards in real projects. They are meant to build upon the standards listed on the Vendor development resources page. Those standards are your primary source for branding, content, design, accessibility, development, and QA requirements.
Use these resources to deepen your understanding of how pages are structured, how content should be written, how to design within the component‑based system, and how to maintain accessible, high‑quality pages across your project.
Design Grid
Every CT.gov page is built on a 12‑column grid. This grid defines how wide a component can be and how components can sit next to each other. It’s the foundation that keeps spacing, alignment, and layout consistent across all agency sites.
Containers are layout tools that tell Sitecore how much of the 12‑column grid a component should use. They don’t change the component itself - they change the space the component is allowed to occupy.
Design Grid
Lead Story Component
A full-size lead story should contain a summary of what’s on the page so that when a user lands on it, they know what they’ll find if they scroll further down. Thus, the name “lead.” The lead story component displays the page’s most important story and summarizes what the page offers. It contains a section heading, a headline, body copy, an image or video, and an optional call-to-action link.
Lead story part I
Lead story part II
Story Group Component
The story group component displays a group of priority “stories” of the page’s main content. It contains a section heading, a headline, body copy, an image or video, and an optional call-to-action link. The difference between the story group and the lead story is that the story group has components in smaller text boxes. The story group component helps call out several second-most equally important “stories” or topics.
Story group part I
Story group part II
Feature Content Card Component
The feature card component is used to display a small story on a page. The component contains a headline, short introduction copy, an image or video, and a call-to-action link to relevant pages or a KB article.
Feature content card part I
Feature content card part II
Multi-step Component
A multistep component is a terrific option for linking out to a simple grouping of different links that only need a little text to explain them. This choice is excellent if you want to save space, call out a certain point, communicate succinctly, and break up the visual monotony on the page so the reader can skim.
Multi step part I
Multi step part II
Link List Component
Link list components are beneficial for arranging and categorizing different resources. Link lists come in handy when displaying walls of otherwise daunting, seemingly unrelated links. These linked lists let you break up the content visually and thematically according to their natural groupings. For example, if organizing IT links, you might group one linked list into IT Help and the other into Security Services.
Link list part I
Link list part II
Tile Card Component
The tile card component is another effective way to organize different links. As you can see below, there are various kinds of tile card components that you can use according to your content needs. Since this option is visually appealing, vary the types of tile cards on your page to break up visual monotony.
Tile cards part I
Tile cards part II
Accordion Component
The accordion component displays content and links that would otherwise make the page excessively long or difficult to read. However, using accordions is best when other content components don’t work. Usually, the ideal route is to follow content best practices and focus on on-page content structure.
Accordion group part I
Accordion group part II
Video Component
The Video Component features an embedded video from a streaming source such as YouTube or Vimeo. The video source must be configured to allow for public access and accessibility considerations such as captioning.
Video component part I
Video component part II
Features
Press Releases and Meeting and Agendas are features that are universally available to all websites.
Press releases video
Meetings and agendas
Knowledge base articles are short, text‑based answers to common questions. This video shows how they’re structured and explains how they support child pages, which use components to link out to these more detailed, task‑focused articles.
View more on Knowledge Base articles, including job aids
