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 …
Would you read government guidance if you didn't have to? "Of course not," says the average citizen. That's why every new page that the Smarter Guidance team creates has to have a user need. If there's no need for someone …
This month we launched a new farming topic page on GOV.UK. It brings together all farming content, hopefully in a way that makes it much easier for people to find what they’re looking for. It also allows government to point farmers to …
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 …
One of the dubious privileges of my suburban upbringing was watching my Dad assemble flat pack furniture on rainy Sunday afternoons. As the hours passed and the chair, barbecue or desk started to emerge with missing legs or extra arms, …
The Smarter Guidance team has been working to make content smarter -- make it more readable and clearer for users. But how do we measure if we've been successful? I've devised one way and while it'll take more than a …
Defra's guidance helps people comply with the law, but people use it because they have a task to complete. Whether it's labelling food products or applying for a grant, a user's task is always broader than just knowing what the legislation …
A few of us Defra content designers recently went to the government content design community's first conference, at Impact Hub Westminster. There were 150 of us. We swapped ideas and shared our gripes. We drank tea and ate biscuits (really …
Defra’s Smarter Guidance programme aims to make it much easier for people to follow the regulations that affect them. After all, that’s what guidance is for.
