Content design: 5 things that can hurt comprehension and readability in difficult moments

Like many content designers, I learned my trade while working at the Government Digital Service on the launch of GOV.UK back in 2012.

By its nature, the content I worked on back then wasn’t anything anyone really wanted to read — interactions with government aren’t something people actively seek out unless they have to. Every moment I was designing for was a difficult one.

My work on integrity at Meta fit that exact bill, too. Here’s an example to put it in context: the experience seen by people whose posts are taken down for breaking the rules on graphic violence (it scaled across all violations, and across Instagram and Messenger too):

Content takedown experience for graphic violence on Facebook.

Stress cases should be top of mind, even if you’re working on something primarily designed to delight. And while this guidance is helpful, it’s no substitute for research to ground you in the realities of the people you’re designing for.

Here are some of the things I’ve learned in my career so far — with practical tips on how to avoid exacerbating an already difficult moment:

#1: Don’t name things unless you have to. Naming can add to cognitive load.

• While it’s convenient shorthand internally, naming things introduce new concepts that can stop people in their tracks and get in the way of people completing a task.
• Try being descriptive as a default rather than naming a feature—or if you absolutely have to name something, invest in research.

Example: We used “disagree with decision” (from the larger flow above) instead of “appeal”. Not only because “appeal” felt very technical, but also because leaning in to people’s emotional reaction in this moment garnered more responses from the right people. We needed “appeal” for various reasons in internal conversations, but it simply didn’t come up as a need in the flow itself.

Step in the Facebook content takedown experience where people are given the choice to accept or disagree with the decision.

#2: Avoid metaphors and be plain instead. Metaphors can be taken literally or read in very different ways.

• I wrote in US English as default for the last block of my career, and one of the most striking example I encountered while onboarding was the use of ‘Got it’ in buttons as a synonym of ‘OK’.
• ‘Got it’ is prevalent in US English, but if you’re someone whose first language isn’t English — or someone who thinks in British English—you may not have that same mental model. ‘Got it’ may lead to questions like ‘got what?’ — or self-doubt as to whether the reader needs to ‘have’ something physically when that’s really not the case.
• During my time at Meta, I encountered stories of hundreds of people in India using Facebook in English as a means to learning the language. Doubtless there are millions of people around the world using products in a language that isn’t their first. This is why it’s always good to strip out anything that isn’t plain.
• Metaphors are exclusionary. Gear icons for settings require words to be properly understood at scale.

Example: See John Saito’s excellent post on making up metaphors for a deeper dive on this topic.

#3: Don’t assume that someone’s happy about completing a flow. Focus on the facts.

• Completing a flow means hitting a business goal or completing a task, but it may not be something to celebrate for the person in it.
• Acknowledge your assumptions and flip them. See where you might be excluding people by pushing an agenda on them. Remain neutral and focus on what’s important.

Example: This is the screen that shows after someone disagrees with a content moderation decision. It’s focused on next steps and doesn’t feel congratulatory. This may be the end of the flow, but it’s not a happy moment.

Screen of the content takedown experience that confirms someone has disagreed with the decision, and outlines next steps.

#4: Make sure each screen of a flow stands alone.

• Don’t assume people will flip back and forth to gather context. Have each screen contain steps that stand alone, without dependencies on what’s come before or what comes next.
• People won’t spend an equal amount of time on each screen, so it’s on you to make sure discrete concepts aren’t just arranged in manageable chunks but also make sense on their own terms.

Example: This is a snippet from the Community Standards on violent and graphic content. It’s presented as the third screen in the flow, with a level of detail and specificity that’s unrelated to what’s come before.

Screen of the content takedown experience where Facebook presents an abbreviated snippet of the Community Standards, focusing on information that’s pertinent to the particular post at hand.

#5: Only ask for the info that you need.

• The more you ask for, the higher the expectation on how you’ll use it.
• Equally, the more ask you for more likely it is that someone will just drop out of your product or service and leave.

Example: This screenshot (2016) is from the experience of paying your self-assessment tax bill. You’ll see it asks for minimal info to make progress, and gives guidance on the unusual thing that people may not have immediately to hand.

The self-assessment tax payment service from HMRC, on GOV.UK

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This is the guidance that I have to date. I’ll keep revisiting this — I’m sure there’s plenty for me still to learn. What else would you add?