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This is a toolkit based on decades of research on how to communicate effectively in written documents. It is written to be easy and quick to read, following the same guidance it is presenting.
This is for anyone working toward social good who wants to effectively communicate information with the public. Non-profit workers, academic communications specialists, public sector employees, activists--welcome to your toolkit!
This Toolkit is designed for languages and cultures that read from left to right. While this is not the only way to read, that is the framework from which most of the research described here is written. Ideal future versions of this project will work to be more inclusive of other reading styles in order to reach all people equitably.
This is geared toward written content presented on a screen. This is not meant to substitute as a guide for technical papers that already have their own guidelines. However--some guidance may still be beneficial for content outside the target type.
People spend 10-20 seconds on the average page--but for pages that have something to offer them, they will stay much longer. People make a first impression of a page within milliseconds--so you don't have long to capture someone's attention. Due to the rise in internet reliance, people struggle to both read and retain information. If you are working toward social good, you presumably want to make sure the most people read and retain the information you share with them--and this toolkit can help guide you on how to get there.
If you have a document in mind: you can start at the beginning and work your way through, or you can use the menu on the left to take you right to the resources you need.
If you are just visiting to take a look around: feel free to read straight through--no matter who you are or what your job, something in here is bound to be helpful.
💡 GRIDBit: GRIDBits are fun facts and bits of research located around the toolkit. When you see this symbol, something interesting is coming your way!
How Long Do Users Stay on Web Pages? Jakob Nielsen, Nielsen Norman Group, 2011.
Is Google Making Us Stupid? Nicholas Carr, The Atlantic, 2008.
If what you are attempting to explain is complicated, add graphics: photos, drawings, tables, charts, graphs, or whatever makes the most sense. Add graphics when they add value to the work--not only to make it more visually attractive.
Your images should be of high resolution when viewed at the size the reader will see them. If it is something that might go on a large screen, test to make sure it still looks clear and appealing on a large screen. There are tools, like the one here which will measure the maximum size you could print any of the images in your documents without losing quality, should you want to.
Approximately 91% of readers read the caption of images. Captions are among the most read content on a page--only lagging behind the title (97%) and subtitle (98%).
For websites, include alternative text in your site coding that describes what the image is, and/or what you want the reader to take from the image. Sometimes what you are trying to convey in an image is able to just be written into the alternative text, but other times you may need to describe your point.
Compare the captions throughout the GRID Toolkit-- some repeat the text of the image word-for-word, but others summarize the point of the image. Consider what you might want to hear instead of the image if the image were not there.
Dyslexia Friendly Style Guide. British Dyslexia Association.
Eyetracking Web Usability. Jakob Nielsen and Kara Pernice, Nielsen Norman Group, 2009.
Include a table of contents or other guides
Tables of contents accelerate finding information and help readers know what they will find without frustration. This increases the likelihood they will stay to read your content if they find it interesting or useful, instead of leaving because it was unclear. If there are multiple levels to your organizational hierarchy for the document, consider not only how the information fits within the document, but also on the page.
For example: this page not only has the left sidebar, but also a page-based breakdown in the top right corner showing what is on this page.
Dynamics in Document Design: Creating Text for Readers. Karen A Schriver, 1997.
Structuring Documents According to Their Table of Contents. Hervé Déjean and Jean-Luc Meunier, Proceedings of the 2005 ACM Symposium on Document Engineering, 2005.
Whenever possible, avoid jargon or complicated vocabulary.
We are often conditioned to think that information that is more complex is better--but it just makes your information harder to read. Nobel Prize Laureate and writer of Pygmalion, George Bernard Shaw, once said:
‘‘In literature, the ambition of a novice is to acquire the literary language; the struggle of the adept is to get rid of it.’’
Write for your audience, whoever they are. The average American is only able to read at a 7th- to 8th-grade level, but that does not necessarily mean everything should be written for an 8th grader. The most shareable content is easy to read and novel--so keep it as simple as you can while still serving your audience.
💡 GRIDBit: Sometimes text seems more complex just because of length. War and Peace, a generally regarded difficult read, ranks just above an 8th-grade level.
Some tools to consider based on your target audience reading level include:
Note: There are significantly more readability tests than the ones listed here.
It is easy to forget best practices when one is not regularly being evaluated. Refresh yourself on basic grammar, or have a colleague or friend proofread for you.
Dyslexia Friendly Style Guide. British Dyslexia Association.
Plain Words (Part 1). Joseph Kimble, Michigan Bar Journal, 2001.
Plain Words (Part 2). Joseph Kimble, Michigan Bar Journal, 2001.
Wrong—Again—About Plain Language. Joseph Kimble, Michigan Bar Journal, 2013.
Tailor your writing to who will be reading it, and the situation they will be reading in. There may be things you want to communicate, but are they things that the reader needs to know, or even wants to know?
Consider how each concept can be rewritten to be clearer. Shorter and more direct writing will be easier to understand and faster to read, increasing the likelihood it will be read at all.
Limit text to three consecutive nouns.
Look at the nouns in your sentence--can any be verbs instead?
Can any of your verbs be made active?
Consider reading a guidebook on concise writing in your language even if you are already fluent--for American standard English, try the Bedford Handbook or A Plain English Handbook.
Make the audience connect with your writing by focusing on writing to them with the use of "you."
The goal is not to be as short as possible--just as clear as possible. Remove words that do not add meaning, or replace them with more precise language.
This is not middle school English where you are penalized for repetition.
If you are writing a blog post on your website, people reading it probably know the acronym for your organization.
Conversely, define words, phrases, or abbreviations when you first use them, if they are necessary.
Write the most important information first, and then move on to more specific details. This allows your readers to quickly determine if they need the rest of the information or not. It also makes it more likely they will read the most important information before stopping.
💡 GRIDBit: People only spend 10-20 seconds looking at a page. That is how long you have to convince them you have something to offer!
Visibly larger introductory paragraphs are viewed by 95% of readers. Make the introductory paragraph in a larger font, or consider a bold typeface.
If your first sentence in a section is a summary, then even just reading that first sentence will be beneficial to your reader.
Align them to the left of the page. Make them bold, but do not make them all capitalized letters if there is an alternative.
💡 GRIDBit: THIS IS THE INTERNET IN THE 21ST CENTURY, CAPITAL LETTERS ARE NOW CONSIDERED YELLING.
Bullets can be used to list steps or to visually break up text blocks.
Limit the levels of bullets to only two or three.
Bullets should only be numbered if they are in a specific order.
Items included in the bullets should fit together logically.
Only use one type of bullet point, ideally the traditional dot.
Dynamics in Document Design: Creating Text for Readers. Karen A Schriver, 1997.
How you organize your content is a critical element of conveying yourself effectively.
Numerous studies have been conducted that show how people scan information. It is most frequently in an “F” pattern--reading across the top, skimming the left of the page, and then across the page a bit further down, before dropping off. Sometimes people scan in a layer-cake pattern, focusing on titles, headings, and the starts of sentences.
💡 GRIDBit: Less than 16% of people read in a commitment pattern, reading each word.
The Diagram is a way to understand a page visually, and design based on that understanding. It was developed in the 1950s by a typologist who broke down a page into four quadrants. People start at the top left, then move their sight to the bottom right, scanning the top right and bottom left as their eyes move down. The most attention will be in the top left (notice the similarities to the F pattern above), and the top right and bottom left will only be noticed if your design particularly emphasizes it. Most attention will still go to the top right than the bottom left of the page.
Using this knowledge: put your important information in line with the natural line of sight (in the top left and middle), and put your call to action in the bottom right.
💡 GRIDBit: Eighty percent of the time spent on a page is spent looking at the left, as compared to 20% of the right.
People are most likely to interact with a request for them to do something (click to the next page, etc.) if you place it in the bottom-right of the page.
For example, here, the link to the next page in the Toolkit can be found in the bottom right of the page.
Shorter sections seem easier to read. The generally regarded ideal single-column line length is 66 characters. For multiple columns, 40-50 characters is better. People read more if your page has 110 words or less. Consider your audience, use case, and content format well when accounting for these parameters.
💡 GRIDBit: On average, people will read 28% of the text on your page. 20% is a more realistic estimate.
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Do not mix red/pink and green, as the most common color blindness will be impacted. Yes--even if they are heavily contrasting shades. Imagine reading blue text with a blue background--it is a similar concept.
Ensure sufficient contrast between background and text.
Avoid photo backgrounds where possible.
Backgrounds should be one color.
💡 GRIDBit: 1 in 12 men are colorblind. Colorblindness can happen at any point--even after birth.
Color Blindness. National Eye Institute, 2019.
Dyslexia Friendly Style Guide. British Dyslexia Association.
Serif fonts should be used for body text, and sans serif for headings. This is not a hard and fast rule, but a helpful one if you are trying to decide how to format.
Do not use many fonts--this is confusing and can look messy.
If you need more differentiation, consider bolds, italics, underlines, or changing the weight of the font.
Some people have difficulty reading the letters on a page. Making good font choices can help make it easier for them to read.
Sans serif fonts seem less crowded.
Larger font sizes should be used, at least 12-14 pt.
Leave extra white space around elements, like headers and paragraphs--it makes it easier to separate out text.
Good basic fonts for dyslexia, according to a study, are:
Helvetica
Courier
Arial
Verdana
Computer Modern Unicode
💡 GRIDBit: "Serif" indicates the small "feet" of text. Therefore, "sans serif" fonts are slightly simpler in style. Sans serif used to be preferred for screen-based text due to the low resolution, but this is not as much of a problem with modern screens.
Body Text: Four Important Considerations. Practical Typography.
Dyslexia Friendly Style Guide. British Dyslexia Association.
Good Fonts for Dyslexia. Luz Rello and Ricardo Baeza-Yates, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2013.
There is tons of information on how to create accessible content. That is not what this guide is. However, here are some useful tools to help you evaluate the accessibility of your content:
For dynamic content (anything past a basic text page) you may consider testing using a screen reader with your content. That way, you will see any clear issues with it that you might be able to improve for your audience. There are not many good free options (it is a problem), so here is one.
Test on multiple types of devices (like a phone, a computer, and a tablet). Always remember that content on a screen can vary widely based on screen size.
Always remember that accessible design should be your baseline, not a stretch goal.
Design does not need to be complicated, and you do not need to be a graphic designer to create a good document. This is not a substitute for a design course, but this is a great place to start your thinking about design past a wall of black Times New Roman text on a white page.
Accessible design is often an afterthought. Accessible design is not just good for people with blindness and colorblindness--it can help people with learning disabilities, and some practices (like alternative text) can make your content still consumable on poor web connections and less modern hardware.
This is not a design course. However, here are some free resources for creating documents in.
Increased amounts of hyperlinks lead to more content consumption.
Links can be a great way to get readers to learn more about a topic, or to connect concepts to each other. However, links should not be used unless they add value.
Over time, things on the internet move, which can break links in your documents. There are ways to avoid this, including:
Host as much information on your actual document as is needed.
Do not include unnecessary links.
Effects of Hyperlink Density on News Web Page Use: An Eyetracking Study. Laura Ruel and Bartosz W Wojdynski, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Stop Link Rot: How to Preserve Webpages. Texas A&M University School of Law, 2020.
To have a document, you need something you want to communicate. You need to write something appropriate for your audience--but first, you need to identify who that is.
You can break down identifying your audience into three main questions:
Who is using my resources?
Why are they using my resources?
What do I want my audience to know or do?
Consider some dominant traits of who might use your resource--who are they? What do they know already? Are you writing an informational flier about why people should vote for soon-to-be 18-year-olds considering voter registration, or is it for older Americans who have been registered for years and have not voted?
Consider some possible use cases for your document. If you wrote a document teaching basic information literacy, is it for people Googling information about how to determine if an article is true, or is it for people who came to your site seeking information literacy skills directly? How are they using my resources?
Will they be scanning the page looking for a specific word? Will they be trying to blitz through enough of the page to get the gist? (Spoiler alert: no, they probably will not be coming to read every word.)
You have something in mind that is the reason you are writing this content. What is it?
Federal Plain Language Guidelines. The Plain Language Action and Information Network (PLAIN), 2011.
