Category: We Heart Health Literacy

A good homepage marries design, content, and usability. But what exactly does that look like? People often ask us for examples — so here are a few homepages that we ❤ and why we ❤ them.

• ourbodiesourselves.org
  Hooray for actionable buttons and plain language!
• hioscar.com
  We’re not usually a fan of splash pages, but this one really focuses on a single, clear message — which is important for a young company with a new idea.
• letsmove.gov
  There’s no question what this website is about — and the colors really make it pop!
• cancer.org
  This homepage makes it really easy to find what you’re looking for without scrolling endlessly.
• healthymagination.gehealthcare.com
  When you think of how complicated this homepage could be (diagnostic imaging options, anyone?), you understand what a feat it is that they’ve made it this simple.
• plannedparenthood.org
  Great colors and a user-friendly design make this one of our favorite homepages.
• healthcare.gov
  The latest facelift of this one makes it even easier to use.

Every one of these homepages lets you know what the website is about right away — who they are, what they do, and how they want you to feel.

What are your favorites? Share them in the comments below.

The bottom line: There’s no single way to make a perfect homepage, but some really stand out from the crowd — in a good way!

A lot of media outlets have made a good effort to clarify how a person can and cannot get Ebola. But confusion persists. Could it be a health literacy issue?

Think about it: When was the last time that terms like “bodily fluids,” “mucous membranes,” and “infectious” got so much traction in newspapers and news reports? Is it safe to assume that people know what these terms mean? (And that everyone has seen Outbreak at least a dozen times like us health geeks?) Of course not, dear readers.

Let’s take a look at some common terms used in the Ebola news coverage.

Bodily fluids
This one is everywhere. As in, “Ebola is passed from person to person by contact with infected bodily fluids.” But what exactly is a bodily fluid?

It helps to give examples:

You can get Ebola from contact with the bodily fluids of someone who has it — for example, blood, saliva (spit), vomit (throw up), feces (poop), urine (pee), or sweat.

(And if you need advice about how to handle those, umm, sticky terms, we’ve got you covered.)

Direct contact
This goes hand-in-hand with “bodily fluids,” and unfortunately presents equal potential for confusion. You need to have direct contact with the bodily fluids of someone with Ebola in order to get it. But what other kinds of contact are there?

Again, be sure to clarify the information with examples.

To get Ebola, you have to have direct contact with the bodily fluids of someone who has it. Examples of direct contact include infected fluids getting into your mouth or eyes — or touching a cut on your skin.

Mucous membrane
This is a jargon term if we’ve ever seen one. And what do we do with jargon, team plain language? Define, define, define.

Ebola spreads through direct contact with mucous membranes such as your eyes, your mouth, or the inside of your nose.

You get the idea. Remember: In the face of fear and uncertainty, plain language saves the day. Keep it up, fellow health literacy advocates!

The bottom line: The Ebola outbreak is an extremely tragic situation. It’s also a very good reminder of why plain language and clear communication are so important.

We really hate to do this, but we’re asking for your help.

We know, we know — your Facebook and Twitter feeds are already flooded with similar demands. “Like” this, retweet that, gimme money for my poorly-conceived Kickstarter, and so on. But we swear, this is different — a project that anyone committed to health literacy can get behind.

We’ve applied for a $150,000 grant through the Chase Mission Main Street fund to back a project we’re super excited about — Picture Public Health, a database of stock photos specifically designed for health communicators.

Sure, the web is chock-full of stock photos tagged “health” already, but we’ve written about our struggles with the available selection before. Basically, it can be hard to find health-related photos that aren’t terrible.

So we’ve been working to create a library of stock photos showing real people doing healthy things. That means no Photoshopped models staring blankly at forkfuls of salad, no silhouetted figures striking yoga poses on the beach, and no photos tagged “bike safety” showing kids riding without helmets.

This project won’t only benefit us and the people who use our products. Our goal is to make Picture Public Health accessible to everyone — and affordable for public health organizations on a budget.

This project is dear to our hearts, but we need funding to pull it off. That’s why we’re asking for your help.

So follow the directions below and cast a vote for real, engaging stock photos for health communicators! If we get enough votes by October 17, we’ll make it into the next round.

Thank you. And we promise, we won’t make a habit of this.

Help Us Win a Chase Mission Main Street Grant in 3 Easy Steps

1. Go to our Business Profile
2. Click “vote now” to vote with your Facebook account (don’t worry — it won’t post to Facebook when you vote)
3. Kick back and bask in your awesomeness

The bottom line: Health communicators need better photo options. You can help.

As bulleted list enthusiasts, we often get asked about how to punctuate them. Style guides are all over the place on this issue, but we like to keep it simple (no surprise there). That’s why our answer is: Whenever possible, don’t punctuate bullets in consumer health materials.

If you have a list of things or incomplete sentences, never punctuate them.

We ❤ Health Literacy is:

• An excellent resource that I forward to all my friends
• The best
• Helpful

If you have a list of complete sentences, you really don’t need to punctuate those either.

Our favorite use of lists is for action items. Be sure to:

• Use lists to break down information into helpful pieces
• Add lists to your top 10 favorite things
• Make lists about lists every day

See? Clear information, no punctuation needed!

If you feel like your list isn’t clear without punctuation, rethink it. Does the information need to be broken down into smaller chunks? Is it more appropriate for short paragraphs than a list?

And please, whatever you do, don’t use semicolons.

The bottom line: Keep your bulleted lists simple and skip the punctuation.

Picture this: you’re drafting an oh-so-health literate health material, slicing through jargon with your razor-sharp plain language skills, when you hit a medical term that leaves you stumped: the dreaded “inflammation.”

At first, you may think it’s an easy fix. In plain language circles, it’s not uncommon to say inflammation = swelling, the end! But not so fast. “Swelling” might work for an inflamed knee or elbow, but what about chronic inflammation that causes sneakier problems?

The truth is, inflammation isn’t the same as its symptoms — it’s a complex process in the body. So unfortunately, you can’t change every “inflammation” to “swelling” and still be medically accurate.

So what’s the solution? As is so often the case, it depends on the context. First, decide if your audience needs to know the word “inflammation” at all.

When people have inflammation from a cut or injury, they may not need to know the underlying cause of their symptoms. So stick to what they can actually feel or see.

Instead of:

• Call your doctor if you see signs of inflammation near the cut.
• Apply ice to reduce inflammation in the knee.

Try:

• Call your doctor if the area near the cut gets red, swollen, or hot.
• Put ice on your knee to help reduce swelling.

But when people have inflammation as part of a chronic disease, they need to know the lingo — and “swelling” won’t cut it. In that case, follow these tips to explain inflammation:

• Start with the system. Inflammation begins with the immune system — so your story should, too. Explain how inflammation can mean that the body is fighting an infection — or, in the case of autoimmune diseases, that the body is fighting… itself.
• Skip cytokines and the like. As a health whiz, you may be comfy discussing all the teensy molecules at work in inflammation. But people with complex health conditions are likely already drowning in scary jargon. So don’t drag their attention down to the molecular level.
• Tailor the symptoms to the situation. In some health conditions, swelling might be the only sign of inflammation. But inflammation can also affect less visible body parts, like the heart — and cause more subtle symptoms, like fatigue. So list specific symptoms for each condition, and ditch the one-size-fits-all approach.

The bottom line: Don’t inflame your readers with unnecessary “inflammation” — and when you need to use the word, explain it in plain language.

Tweet about it: “Inflammation” got you down? @CommunicateHlth has #HealthLit tips to demystify this tricky term: https://bit.ly/39eJlAG

Let’s face it: The best-written web content is useless if your audience can’t access it. Many of us take our ability to find information online for granted, but did you know that about 1 in 5 people copes with some type of disability? Unless you make sure your content is accessible, many people may not be able to get your otherwise wonderful health information.

Don’t panic. We’re here with some tips to make your web content accessible to everyone.

Images
Many people with disabilities use assistive technologies, like screen readers, to access information on the web. Screen readers are software programs that “read” electronic text and graphics out loud. They allow people with visual impairments to hear what’s being displayed on a screen. That’s why you need to include clear text descriptions of the images you use in your content. This language is called alternative (alt) text.

Good alt text is descriptive and explains not only the image, but also how it relates to the content on the page. For example:

• Okay: “man washing hands”
• Way better: “a man washes his hands with warm, soapy water before cooking his meal”

Content
The most important step you can take is to follow health literacy best practices and make sure content is clearly written and easy to read. But you already knew that! Also be sure to provide:

• Headings for text and tables
• Alt text for images and graphics
• Link labels that make sense out of context — for example:

Okay: “Sign up”

Way better: “Sign up for the We ❤ Health Literacy weekly email”

Design
Design with this alphabet of users in mind. (We know — how cool is that blog post?!)

The bottom line: We all have a responsibility to make health information accessible to everyone.

Are you looking to settle a heated grammar debate with a coworker? Maybe you’ve come to harsh words over the Oxford comma and need some backup? Or perhaps you can’t remember precisely what a comma splice is, but you have a sinking feeling you may have spliced something you shouldn’t have?

Well good news, fellow grammar nerds (and grammar newbies): there’s a superhero ready to come to your rescue. And her name is Grammar Girl.

Grammar Girl’s tips and podcasts are smart, useful, and fun — just how we like ’em! Because here at We ❤ Health Literacy Headquarters, we know there’s no reason for grammar rules to be boring and incomprehensible.

Seriously, who wouldn’t want to learn how to kick your annoying preposition habit? Well, not your habit. We’re not saying that you, dear reader, have an annoying preposition habit. But if you have a colleague who does, you might want to “accidentally” send them this link — or any of the other handy tips that Grammar Girl churns out on a regular basis.

Whether you’re looking to polish up your own prose or hand out some helpful content at your next staff meeting, look no further than Grammar Girl. We ❤ her — and we think you will, too!

The bottom line: No matter what your level of word nerdiness, Grammar Girl has tips to up your grammar game.

Tweet about it: It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a defender of grammatical truths! @CommunicateHlth shares the love for that syntactic superhero known as @GrammarGirl: https://bit.ly/2ORuOUq

The gap between people who have access to technology and people who don’t (also called the digital divide) is shrinking. According to Pew, smartphone and home broadband internet access have grown among:

• Racial and ethnic minorities
• Adults with low education achievements
• Adults in rural areas

So, what does this mean for those of us who strive to make health information easy to find, understand, and use? Should we forget about pamphlets and focus on widgets?

Not necessarily. Some groups, like people with disabilities, still have limited access to certain technologies. And some people say they don’t use the internet because they don’t know how or find it frustrating.

Before you jump to coding, learn about your audience. If they’re glued to their smartphones, a mobile app might be a good fit. If they don’t own mobile phones or have internet at home, an ol’ fashioned print material may work best.

Remember that a brochure or fact sheet created with the user in mind will be more effective than a website developed in a vacuum.

The bottom line: Avoid developing digital resources just because they’re trendy. Choose the format that’s most appropriate for your audience.

There’s been a lot of buzz lately about medication adherence. It’s understandable, of course. Doctors who prescribe medicine want patients to take it as directed. Patients who are prescribed medicine want to feel better.

But following prescriptions, especially multiple daily prescriptions, is hard. So let’s not make it worse by using overly complex language to talk about it.

Saying “medication adherence” is okay when talking to your colleagues… if you must. But when you’re talking to or writing for patients, throw it out the window! There are many better and clearer options. For example:

• It’s important to follow the directions for taking your medicine.
• Follow all instructions for your medicine.
• Learn about your medicine and take it correctly.
• Take your medicine as prescribed.
• Take your medicine as directed.

Thus, we challenge you never to write something like: Medication adherence is an important part of being actively involved in your health care.

Don’t do it! The message might not stick. Instead, try one of our friendly, plain language alternatives. Or write your own. We know you can.

The bottom line: Stick to plain language and skip “medication adherence.”

A while back, we talked about the dangers of crummy stock photos. This week, we’re tackling a different variety of dangerous visual: bad illustrations.

It’s no wonder that health communicators love illustrations. Lots of people learn better when information is presented visually, and a good illustration can make your point more elegantly and directly than text alone.

But illustrations can also go so, so wrong. Whether the offender is a cartoon, chart, graph, or infographic, a bad illustration can really muck up your health materials.

[Disclaimer: We’ve probably all created a bad illustration at some point in our careers. People in glass houses, etcetera. But in the name of health literacy, let’s pick on a few.]

We’re pretty sure the message here is: a California Raisin invites yellow peanut M&Ms on a wild ride through your innards. And what do you, the host of this internal-organ slip n’ slide for snack foods, get in return? Hairy, swollen, purple feet — and kidneys where your lungs should be.

The takeaway here? True love means sacrificing your eyes and blasting polka dots from your lungs into your partner’s gaping face hole.

But not all bad illustrations are confusing (or disgusting). Many of them just don’t need to exist. They may look fine at first glance, but then…

When all you’ve got is 2 numbers showing a boring 10 percent difference, spice things up by adding a meaningless x-axis, unnecessary lines, and 4 different colors. Voila! It’s argyle.

Heed these warnings, dear readers. People look to illustrations to help them understand what you’re talking about. So don’t make them waste their time trying to understand nonsense.

The bottom line: Don’t toss in illustrations or infographics just because. Use them carefully — and make sure they communicate your message clearly.

Tweet about it: Ever look at an illustration and feel… ill? @CommunicateHlth shares cautionary tales of #HealthLit illustrations gone wrong: https://bit.ly/2K1axJ5