But really, helpful for everyone
Clean energy design and marketing can learn a lot from best practices for neurodivergence to make content better for everyone. How, you ask? Read on for tips to make your clean energy content and design better.
I was in a meeting last week, and the subject of neurodivergence came up. I firmly believe that in 99% of cases when designing/accommodating for neurodivergence those same accommodations make design and content better for everyone.
In the conversation, we discussed work meetings. One person expressed concern at meetings in which to-dos are left as understood but not explicitly expressed. This can be a frustrating experience with significant additional mental load added to attempt to understand exactly what they’re supposed to do as a result of the meeting.
I mentioned my practice of taking the last few minutes in a meeting and reiterating to-dos and assignees. For me, a list person, I do this to ensure we’re all on the same page and tasks don’t get missed. For someone with certain types of neurodivergence, this practice could alleviate stress, giving them more bandwidth to focus on their job. For the scattered person who jumped off the Teams meeting for a couple of minutes to quickly take a call, it can be a much-needed recap. Really, who doesn’t benefit from this final check in meetings/calls?
We all participate in work meetings, and I expect this scenario is relatable. By making a small shift, we can accommodate AND make meetings better for everyone.
Clean energy marketing content and design is similar. By making adjustments and using best practices, everyone will have a better experience.
Merriam-Webster defines neurodivergent as, “having or relating to a disorder or condition (such as autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, or obsessive-compulsive disorder) that impacts the way the brain processes information.” I would add to that when we’re considering inclusive design to consider vision, hearing, and learning styles.
That’s a lot to consider when thinking about content and design. The good news is that in most cases design and content best practices will make your clean energy design and marketing more accessible for all.
Reducing cognitive load
Our brains want to be lazy, using as little energy as possible to get the task done. By working to reduce the cognitive load for all of those taking in our content, we also deploy tools that help those with neurodivergent minds.
Provide a structure
A table of contents, an introductory overview/summary, or “you will learn” type takeaways will allow your audience to know what to expect. Your audience can then focus on the actual content over questioning where this piece of content is going. An added bonus is that by providing the structure up front, you will also help those dealing with anxiety.
Use a hierarchy
Arranging content in logical steps from a headline, to sections, to paragraph headers, to the content makes it easier to follow. Those with shorter attention spans can skim through your content to read headline text without feeling overwhelm at walls o’ text. And those who prefer clearly structured content will spend their time taking in the information over trying to follow “what’s next.”
Even in short, social media graphics, a hierarchy can be deployed, with the most salient content bolder and larger than supporting content.
Detail next steps
Are there specific actions you would like your audience to take? Be explicit in stating the action(s). The shorter the piece of content, the fewer next steps it should have. For example, a white paper might have options for downloading more information or contacting your team for a demo. But a much shorter social image and post would have just one next step. If there are multiple next steps your audience can take, create more than one social post.
Remove sensory overload
The point at which sensory overload happens is tough to determine. Everyone is different. And for every person who thrives meeting friends in the middle of Times Square, there is another person who works in a home office to reduce office noise. However, we can employ practices that will generally help reduce sensory overload as well as improve design.
Reduce clutter
Working hand-in-hand with content structure and hierarchy, reducing visual clutter will help everyone take in the information/visuals that are there. Here are a few items that add clutter without us always realizing it:
- Images and illustrations that don’t use similar color palettes.
- Different illustration styles – e.g. an isometric illustration next to a flat illustration.
- Busy charts and graphs. Or charts and graphs using a lot of colors.
- Patterned or photo backgrounds.
- Images and text that aren’t aligned.
- Lines and background block colors that aren’t a part of a visual hierarchy.
- Crowded text without breathing room between the lines.
Reduce movement
Integrating motion on a website can be a good way to pull your audience through the website or let them know an action can be taken. And motion can distract from your content to the point that anyone with sensory issues navigates away from the site. It’s a balance.
- Remove autoplay from videos.
- Don’t loop animations or background videos. Set them up to play once when they enter the view window.
- Don’t add animations or images to mouseovers to the entire website – e.g. a colored dot that appears just slightly off of wherever the arrow just was when mousing over a website.
- Do add movement when scrolling with simple parallax effects.
- Do add subtle animations on hover to alert the viewer of available actions – e.g. buttons.
Remember to use movement to help deliver your message, not just because you can.
Make sound optional
Aligning with removing autoplay on videos, ensure your videos can be played without sound. And definitely don’t use sound in any background videos.
Subtitles are a must on all videos, unless it’s a background video added for visual interest.
Focus on clarity
Designing clean energy content feels like a 24/7 job to “keep up.” And in that shuffle, it’s easy to create something quickly without taking a step back to assess if the piece is delivering your message with clarity. However, by taking a moment to review and incorporate a few key tactics, your audience will thank you.
Be consistent
Like reducing clutter, consistency works hand-in-hand with structure and hierarchy. Using colors, fonts, formatting, images, and illustrations consistently will allow your audience to focus on what your content says over trying to parse your message.
Choose typography wisely
Unless you choose fonts specifically designed for those with dyslexia, you’ll make some tradeoffs when choosing fonts for readability. However, in most cases, humanist, sans serif fonts are easiest to read, especially on screens. It also helps if they are monospaced instead of variable width. And choose left alignment over justifying your text.
Use white space
Using white space (not always actually white) to give your text and images some breathing room will help with readability as well as reducing clutter. However, don’t add white space by reducing font sizes too much. You’ll leave anyone who wears reading glasses ready to pull their hair out.
Use alt-text
Yes, take the time to give your images alt-text descriptions. It takes an extra minute, but ensures your site and social images are accessible to a wider audience. And search engines love websites that have alt-text.
Related
Run your site through AccessibilityChecker.org to see what you can do to improve it.
Use more than one media
This one can be tough to incorporate when we’re running a million miles a second, but consider presenting your content using more than one media type. For example, a blog post might also be a video, or include an audio version of the post – allowing people to take in your content in the way they do best.
Make thoughtful color choices
We all have a lot of baggage around color. What colors we like. Emotions wrapped up in certain colors. Add to that defined corporate color palettes and how color impacts low vision or color blindness and it feels like … a lot.
Use contrast
Contrast is key for readability. White text on a light yellow background it going to be tough to read regardless of how good your vision is. Ensure good contrast and consider the media. For example, if you’re giving a presentation, but you don’t have control over the room lighting or the projector used, avoiding yellows or pale colors as they are easily washed out in bright lights or crappy projectors.
And as much as charts and graphs look cleaner with a monochromatic color palette, consider how easy it is to tell light green from medium light green when reading a chart.
Check out this color contrast checker to see how your color choices rate.
Skip color as a selection tool
Telling your audience to click on the red button will only aggravate anyone with color blindness or vision impairments.
Consider mood
Balancing sensory considerations with emotions or moods you’d like to impart can be tricky. Lots of loud, bright colors might be tough for those with sensory issues to take in. On the other hand, a calm palette of pale colors and beiges don’t evoke a concept of “energetic.” Be intentional in your approach.
Ultimately, the same considerations we should make for good design and content are helpful when ensuring accessibility for a wider audience.