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Health Literacy Tips for Public Health Campaigns – Part 3

By: Beth Minnigerode | 10/24/2011

For the last post in our three-part series on health literacy tips, we'll focus on the appearance of your communications piece. Before people read a piece, they glance at it, which reveals if the text will be easy or difficult to understand. You don't want to turn them off before they even get a chance to read what you wrote.

Health Literacy Tips - Appearance

1. Include ample white space to avoid the look of a solid block of text.
2. Use lowercase letters unless capitals are grammatically necessary. The rectangular shape of all caps requires the reader to pause and take in each letter individually. This slows down reading and comprehension. Look at the word "TRY" versus "try."
3. Ensure there is a high degree of contrast between text color and the paper. Don't use reverse type (white on black).
4. Print size is at least 12 point, serif type, no stylized letters.
5. Use an eye-catcher - a box or larger font - to draw reader's eyes to the most important information.
6. Use headers and break text up into small segments, so readers can visually grasp once section before moving on to the next.
7. Skip a line to start a new paragraph instead of indenting.
8. Leave the right ends of paragraphs ragged, not justified.
9. Place the key information first, in the most powerful position. As they say, "first impressions are everything."  The second most powerful area is the end of the communications piece.

Although this final tip doesn't fit under the appearance category, it's one I thought was crucial to mention. Please, test out your piece with a few actual patients/end users before finalizing it. Their input will be invaluable.

Once again, thanks again to the sources I referenced during my studies: the textbook Teaching Patients with Low Literacy Skills, National Institutes of Health Plain Language online training and Health Literacy Missouri.

Posted in Health Care