Standards and style Lorena Sutherland, content lead, Office of the Public Guardian Simon Kaplan, product content lead, GOV.UK SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14

2 Workshop agenda GOV.UK style: why it’s the way it is Content transition: selling the style Content types: a quick guide Lorena SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14

3 Who are you? Lorena SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14 Couple of questions before we start. What is your role at your organisation? Show of hands: content writer (write all content on behalf of other people), web editor (publish other people’s content), policy, communications, operations, other

4 Where are you in the transition process? Lorena SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14 Around 1/3 of agencies and other bodies have made the move to GOV.UK. Where are you? Show of hands: completed transition, middle of writing content, thinking about user needs, content analysis etc, haven’t started yet

GOV.UK style: why it’s like it is www.gov.uk/design-principles/ style-guide Simon SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14

What’s GOV.UK’s style guide based on? Web reading is different to print Simon SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14 The GOV.UK style guide is based on research on people’s web reading behaviour – not just that reading on the web is different to other mediums – our behaviour on web sites is different. Flowing from this we’ve created our design principles. And this is what the style guide is based on. Reading on the web is more difficult: screens are light emitting so it’s more of a strain to read, users blink less (which also makes it more difficult to read) and it’s difficult to hold your place while scrolling.

User needs, doing less and opening up content to everyone So plain English, break text up and put the important content up front Simon SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14 Also, users have a particular need and they want to ‘get in and get out’.

How people write versus how people read Simon SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14 To produce the style guide, we decided to focus on how people actually read.

Your primary set of ‘common words’ is 5,000 terms. You use them every day. They are plain English. You learn these words, learn to recognise and read them quickly and then you… ! ...stop reading them Simon SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14 As we learn to read and write, we build up a set of ‘common words’. Your primary set = 5000 words; your secondary = 10,000. These are the words you use every day; they comprise plain English. You learn them, you learn to read them quickly, and then you stop actively ‘reading’ them.

We don’t read every word Readers don’t progress smoothly through text You can miss up to 30% of the text and still comprehend meaning Simon SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14

Reading without reading Readers don’t read every word: - anticipation - context - recognition of the shape of common words Simon SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14 Once you are a fluent reader, you don’t actually literally read each word - you recognise its shape, comprehend its meaning and move on. Much of what you think you’re reading, you’re actually anticipating, influenced by context. We actually don’t want users to have to read every word – it slows them down. We want them to comprehend, which is slightly different. We want users to do what is more natural: to bounce around the text.

Reading without reading No bold No words in all capitals Reading age = 9-12 years Simon SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14 This is also why we don’t use all capitals for words, or italics - it interferes with the shape of words and makes them harder to recognise. The age at which you can do this - at which you can successfully anticipate and fill in the words - is 9. Our reading age for the site is 9-12.

Effect on your content Readers don’t read every word Specific need or task Only 20 to 28% of a web page is read Therefore cut down the words that aren’t relevant: ensure users read the important content Simon SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14 The cumulative effect of these things - the way we read, the fact that reading on-screen is already much harder than reading on paper, the likelihood that the user has arrived at the site with a quite specific need or task in mind - is that on the average web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely. Less is definitely more. (That’s from the Nielsen Norman Group http://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-little-do- users-read/). So what’s important? Your content strategy should be focused on what people want - use search logs etc. Push v pull of content - if it’s not what users are looking for, they won’t find it anyway. And what’s important is what words you use to describe that needed content

Words to avoid We wanted to reduce the (over)use of terms like ‘delivering’ (a policy agenda), ‘tackling’ (overcrowding), ‘empowering’ Simon SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14 In working with the 24 departments whose content transitioned to GOV.UK, we discovered a number of terms that were commonly used - over-used - and that we believed were not plain English. This is particularly true in content from policy teams. By using these terms, they effectively shut out many users. “We lose trust from our users if we write government ‘buzzwords’ and jargon. Often these words are too general and vague and can lead to misinterpretation or empty, meaningless text. We can do without these words.” - style guide for GOV.UK How you structure your content depends on how people look at a page and what they concentrate on

The F-shaped reading pattern Front-loading means readers who scan text still pick up meaning Simon SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14 Find out the terms that people are using, break down what they’re looking for. Eye-tracking studies have found that users often read web pages in an F-shaped pattern. This means they’ll often only read the first half of any of your headings or titles. Make sure you put the most important words at the front of your headings. Remember the change from ‘pushing’ content out to users to being aware of the ‘pull’ from them for what they need and are looking for. You can also do this with current content: find gaps, re-word existing headings - Lana will cover more about using analytics and optimising your content for search.

Style guide specifics Be concise Use the terms your users do ‘Front-load’ headings and titles Use short sentences and break up content Simon SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14 Being concise reduces the chance of users missing the specific thing they’ve come to the site for - remember that they’ll only read 20% of the page… You can use search logs and analytics to find out what people are looking for - this is essential to making sure your content makes sense to them; if it’s not labelled in a way they recognise, they will not find it.

Content transition: selling the style Lorena SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14

There’s a lot of content that could transfer to GOV.UK Lorena SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14 Agencies have a lot of content that will potentially make the transition to GOV.UK

But not all of it will make the transition Lorena SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14 Not everything will make the transition – you have to make careful judgments

Start with needs* *user needs not government needs Do less Design with data ! www.gov.uk/design-principles Lorena SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14 Judgment should be led by user needs – people come to our sites to accomplish tasks and to fulfil needs, not to hang out. Do less – only do what only government can do Design with data – learn from real world behaviour, usage, search terms, key words etc I also like the 4th principle - do the hard work to make it simple

Content on your website now might “belong” to any of your colleagues Lorena SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14 Meanwhile, back at your organisation … Traditionally content might “belong” to colleagues dealing with: policy, corporate info, operational guidance, technical Or any mix of the above

They might not understand the GOV.UK design principles Lorena SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14 And chances are they won’t always understand the way user needs inform the way we select and write content After all, they have their own jobs to be getting on with They might assume that you’ll migrate all their stuff to GOV.UK more or less as it is

And they might be worried about what will happen to “their” content Lorena SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14 They might worry about: •Changing important stuff •Leaving bits out •So-called Plain English distorting the meaning – changing technical or legal words Or even positive things like: •How can you make it better? •How can you get it seen by more people? •What do they need to think about or do to help?

Or maybe you’ve already written something and they just hate it Lorena SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14 Or else, you’ve already written the content and they HATE IT!

Dumbing down Lorena SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14 I bet you a million pounds someone will say this to you – I hear it all the time at OPG What does it mean?!?!!!

“I think there is a danger that in ‘dumbing down’ the language so much the consumer fails to realise the significance of what they are signing.” Lorena SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14 Here’s some feedback from a professional about simplified forms we’re working on. Firstly, that’s just nonsense. Why SHOULD you sign something you don’t understand? Why on earth SHOULDN’T you understand it anyway? Secondly, where are you cutting off? Are you only interested in serving clever people? How clever? And how “stupid” does someone have to be before you stop caring about communicating with them? IT’s RUDE!!

27 Lorena SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14 So you have All the English in the World. Plain English is just a subset of All the English.

28 Lorena Understood by “brainy” people SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14 There may be some exceptionally brainy people who understand ALL the English. Which means they will also understand Plain English.

29 Lorena Understood by “brainy” people Understood by “brainy” people AND other people SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14 But if you write in Plain English, you KEEP the brainy people and you gain a lot of other people. No loss – all gain.

30 Lorena SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14 This isn’t dumbing down, it’s opening up government information to all.

Exercise Think about your colleagues and their likely questions, worries or obstacles. Then think how you’d deal with them. (2-3 mins) Lorena SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14 In pairs. Anticipate their concerns and we’ll discuss responses and tactics as a group. You might want to think about: - Likely objections from colleagues - Strategies for dealing with colleagues generally -Specific types of concern about transition generally

Content types Simon Sprint GO Thursday, 13 February 14

Forget how your content looks now Simon Sprint GO Thursday, 13 February 14

Start with the user need Simon Sprint GO Thursday, 13 February 14

Standards and style Simon Kaplan, product content lead, GOV.UK Lorena Sutherland, content lead, Office of the Public Guardian SPRINT GO Thursday, 13 February 14