GOV.UK
Get active! Why content designers hate the passive voice
Content written in the active voice helps users understand what they have to do to complete tasks. It reduces confusion by making it clear who is responsible for every action.
Ben Clancy
Content clinic 23 February: what we talked about
We organise regular content clinics across Defra group publishers. Statutory guidance "What are the restrictions on publishing content as statutory guidance?" The style guide says use them for guidance that relevant users are legally obliged to follow. Don’t use for …
Content clinic 10 November: what we talked about
The Defra content team held its first content clinic on a slack channel with editors from Natural England, the Animal and Plant Health Agency, the Rural Payments Agency, Environment Agency and Defra. Headings Can we use H4s in detailed guides? No - …
Content designers need experts
You might have heard that people have had enough of experts. Those people are definitely not content designers. Experts help content designers write factually and legally accurate guidance. Without input from a subject-matter expert (SME) content could lead its users …
Content design at Defra
How Defra designs content in plain English that's easy to use and legally correct.
Defra’s approach to digital content
How Defra designs content so it's legally accurate, easy to find and easy to read.
Making guidance the right length
When producing Defra’s Smarter Guidance for GOV.UK, some people ask: ‘how long should we make this guide?’ The shortest guide I’ve seen was a single url. The longest was 40,000 words. These examples don’t show the acceptable range of a …
Why we use plain English
We use plain English so you can understand anything we publish quickly and easily. Still with me? Thought so. I could’ve said: Simplifying language facilitates the comprehension process of our written guidance. You’d just about get it, but you’d probably …