Category: We Heart Health Literacy

You know when you’re on a website and you just can’t find what you’re looking for? Like, “Where is this place located?” or “What’s the phone number so I can order take out because I’m hangry?”

We don’t have to tell you that’s enough to drive you crazy. A sitemap that isn’t intuitive can ruin a website, no matter how worthy the content. That’s why we’re big fans of card sorting — a testing approach that can help you create an intuitive site map.

Here’s how it works. You give participants a stack of cards, each with the name of a topic that’s on your website (for example, “types of flu vaccines,” “flu basics,” and “flu shot locations.”) Then, you ask the participants to group those cards into smaller stacks of topics that belong together.

You can either give the participants categories to sort the cards into (that’s called a closed sort) or let the participants create the categories themselves (an open sort).

Then you sit back and watch. As they sort the cards, your participants will show you what topics naturally go together in categories — and which topics don’t seem to fit anywhere.

Card sorting is crucial when you’re building a new website from scratch or dramatically overhauling an existing one. But what if you just want to see if your existing site map could use a few tweaks? In that case, you might want to use a related technique called tree testing — so stay tuned for Testing Techniques Part 2!

The bottom line: Every website needs an intuitive site map. Card sorting can help you decide how to organize and label your web content.

We ❤ how easy it’s become to access health information online. Just enter a symptom or disease into your favorite search engine and you’ll have the answers you want in no time.

But how do people without internet access get the information they need to take care of their health? The answer may warm your ❤.

In 2013, a study by Pew Research found that half of online health research is done on behalf of someone else. That means 1 in 2 online health searches are meant to help a family member or friend stay healthy and informed. And how do people searching on behalf of their loved ones get the information they’ve located to the person who needs it? Enter the printer.

That’s right — even if it feels a bit old school, don’t forget about people who may be printing out your online health content.

Here are a few options for ensuring printer-friendliness:

• Follow all the basics of good web design. Use lots of white space, good color contrast, a clear content hierarchy, and images that enhance content.
• Specify a print stylesheet — a unique stylesheet that will only be used when the browser requests to print the page.
• Design your site with fluid, percentage-based widths. Since you don’t know if the user will be printing from a phone, tablet, or computer, you can’t count on a certain width for printing.
• Make the print option obvious. Include a print button on every page to make printing quick and simple for the user.
• If your site uses pagination, make sure that printing will override that — or give users a “view all pages” option.

The bottom line: Make your online health information printer-friendly. It’ll reach a lot more people that way.

Most of us can name a few things we could do to live healthier lives: eat more fruits and vegetables, exercise for 30 minutes a day, get at least 8 hours of sleep every night.

So, because we know these behaviors will improve our well-being, we all do them, right? Um. Well, no.

The truth is that we’re not always ready to change our behaviors. In fact, research shows that at any given time, only about 1 in 5 people are prepared to give up an unhealthy behavior or adopt a healthy one.

According to the Stages of Change theory (also known as the Transtheoretical model), most of us go through 5 stages before and during behavior change:

1. Not ready (Precontemplation)
   You don’t intend to change your behavior in the next 6 months. You may see more cons than pros to changing, or you may have given up hope that you can make the change at all. You may not even know your current behavior is unhealthy. You may need information or encouragement.
2. Getting ready (Contemplation)
   You intend to change your behavior in the next 6 months, but you’re still reluctant. You probably think the pros and cons of changing are about equal, so you may need someone you trust to remind you of the pros.
3. Ready (Preparation)
   You plan to take action in the next 30 days. You believe the pros of changing outweigh the cons. You may begin taking small steps toward making the change, like telling your friends and family.
4. Action
   You have changed your behavior in the last 6 months. You may need to use techniques to keep you moving forward, like giving yourself rewards for making healthy changes.
5. Continuing (Maintenance)
   You changed your behavior more than 6 months ago. You need consistent support to avoid slipping back into the unhealthy behavior.

As health communicators, we can be more effective if we tailor messages to our audience’s stage of change.

Say you want to convince your friend to stop smoking. You may instinctively say, “Smoking’s bad for you! Stop smoking right away!”

But what if your friend hasn’t even begun to think about quitting? He’s probably not ready to throw his cigarettes in the trash and call it a day. He may need more information about the benefits of quitting or encouragement that quitting is possible.

So instead, you could say, “I want you to quit smoking because you’ll feel healthier and live longer. I know you may not be ready to quit now, but I believe you can do it eventually.”

It’s also important to remember that these 5 stages can fluctuate — for example, at the start of the year many people are at the gym trying to lose weight, but by Valentine’s Day they’re back on the couch contemplating.

The bottom line: When writing health information, consider where your readers are in the Stages of Change model. Then write action steps to match that stage.

High-fructose corn syrup. Lactose intolerance. Is it us or does it seem like there are lots of “-ose” words cropping up in health talk lately? So today we thought we’d talk about another “-ose” word that can be important in health writing — especially for the 1 in 11 people in the United States who have diabetes. That’s right, dear readers, let’s talk about “glucose.”

So, do we embrace the scientific word or opt for a simpler alternative? Our answer: it depends on your audience.

When writing for people who don’t have diabetes, skip the word “glucose.” After all, like most other “-ose” words, glucose is a type of sugar. It’s enough to just say “sugar.”

After we eat, our bodies break the food down into sugars. In most people, these sugars turn into energy. But in people with diabetes, many of these sugars don’t turn into energy — instead, they build up in the blood. That’s why people with diabetes have high blood sugar levels.

For people who will likely see the word again (like those who are newly diagnosed with diabetes), use and define “glucose” before giving an explanation.

Glucose is a type of sugar that your body makes when it breaks down food. In most people, glucose gets turned into energy. But in people with diabetes, glucose builds up in the blood. And too much glucose in your blood leads to health problems.

The bottom line: For most audiences, skip “glucose” and use “sugar.” For people who need to know “glucose,” use it — but keep the definition short and sweet.

In the new year, resolve to make your targeted, actionable, plain language online health content easy to find. How? By making it appear in relevant searches on Google and other search engines. This is known as search engine optimization (SEO).

Try these simple steps to improve your SEO.

Use words your audience is searching for.
Writing about myocardial infarctions? Be sure your content mentions heart attacks, too. (But you knew that already.)

It’s also important to include related words that people may use to search. For example, you may not have a shot at coming up first on Google for “asthma,” but you can improve your chances for searches like “how to make an asthma action plan” if those words are in your content.

Include key terms in headers and linked text.
Search engines weigh headers and linked text more heavily than body text. A header that says “Introduction” or a link that says “More information” doesn’t help people find your content.

Meaningful headers like “Shop for low sodium foods” and actionable links like “Use this calculator to figure out your BMI (body mass index)” are much better for SEO.

Provide a text version of graphics.
Image files (like JPGs or PNGs) are invisible to search engines. No matter how much time you’ve spent making that awesome infographic, it will be harder for people to find if you don’t include alt text or an HTML version, too.

Make the meta description brief and clear.
The meta description is the text that displays below the link title on a search results page. It doesn’t affect search results, but it helps users decide whether to click on a link. Think of it as the elevator pitch for a webpage. Since you can’t change a first impression, make it a good one.

Write stellar content.
In the end, the #1 thing you can do to make your information more findable is to write clear content that people want to read. Sound familiar, dear readers?

The bottom line: Don’t worry about keywords or complicated formulas for SEO. Just write good plain language content — and remember alt text and descriptions.

Wishing you, our dear readers, a happy and healthy holiday season!

We hope your new year is filled with plain language, clear design, and calls to action.

Cheers,
Your friends at CommunicateHealth

Welcome to the first installment of the We ❤ Health Literacy Book Club! We’re starting off with a book we’d recommend to anyone who writes web content: Ginny Redish’s Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content that Works. (It’s also required reading here at CommunicateHealth.)

Redish says that writing for the web is all about figuring out what your readers want and then giving it to them. In order to do this, she advocates for paying attention to your audience and building your site around what they need to know — not what you want to tell them. That way, your readers can get the information they need and get on with their day.

Letting Go of the Words clearly explains key issues that apply to all websites, like the difference between a home page and a content page. Plus it discusses specialty topics, such as creating style guides and writing legal language people can understand (yes, it can be done!).

We’re also fans of the great design tips and the notes about accessibility that are integrated throughout. And, true to its own message, the book provides all these helpful details without using too many words.

The bottom line: Letting Go of the Words is a guided tour through the basic principles of user-centered design and web content development.

Every writer needs a topic. But for health writers, a topic alone won’t do the trick — you need both a topic and a message.

To communicate effectively, be sure to give your readers a take-away. Offer information on a health topic, and then provide a message that answers questions like, “What do I do with the information you’ve given me?” or “How is this information relevant to me?”

Take global warming, er… climate change, for example. Here’s some text on the topic of climate change:

Earth’s average temperature has risen over the past century, and will likely continue to rise over the next 100 years. This increase in temperature will cause big changes that may harm our water, food, energy, environment, and health.

If you’re like us, you read these sentences and think, “So what?” You’re looking for a message. Maybe it’s something like:

Earth’s average temperature has risen over the past century, and will likely continue to rise over the next 100 years. This increase in temperature will cause big changes that may harm our water, food, energy, environment, and health. You can help lessen these effects by recycling paper, glass, and plastic.

In the second example, there’s still background information on the topic, but it goes one step further to let readers know how they can take action. In other words, there’s both a topic and a message.

The bottom line: When you write about health, make sure you include a message that helps your readers take action.

Here at CommunicateHealth, we’re genuinely humbled by and thankful for you, our dear readers.

So this year, we want to make sure you’re ready to show off your health communicator skills at the Thanksgiving table.

• Remind your guests to keep everyone healthy by washing their hands before eating.
• Check out these food safety tips for turkey preparation so you can answer ALL the questions in the kitchen. (Bonus: What finer host gift than a new meat thermometer?)
• Make sure to hand out extra helpings of vegetables.
• Remember to use potholders!
• Express your thanks for the Affordable Care Act. This will surely get ’em talking. Then you can subtly sneak in some health insurance literacy. More deductible, anyone?
• And when folks start dozing off after dinner, let them know they can’t blame the tryptophan in the turkey. It’s not the turkey’s fault.

The bottom line: Have a happy and healthy Thanksgiving, everyone.