Not your grandma’s style guide: Tips to help your team remember the why
Written by JON JON MOORE
Have you ever read or updated your organization’s style guide and paused to think, “Wait, why do we do it this way?” You’re not alone.
After countless communications audits and years of helping organizations discover what they need to say to reach their people, we’re convinced — good rules require great reasons.
Put differently, the best style guides are based on the values “guiding” your work!
But the truth is, sometimes it’s hard to remember how the way we communicate reflects those values. It is important to continually ask questions such as:
Why does the readability of that email matter?
Why should you adopt a welcoming vocabulary?
How can we communicate complex ideas that are central to our organization while still using simple language?
And why does it matter whether or not the stock photos on your website actually reflect the diversity of the people you’re speaking to?
Here are three tips to help you create a style guide that shows your team how to communicate and helps them remember why it matters.
Prioritize Accessibility
In the rush to reach our audiences, it can be easy to forget that our similarities don’t minimize our differences. Creating guidelines for accessible communications prevents your team from assuming that their abilities are universal.
Accessibility isn’t just about using language clearly. It’s also about sharing information in ways that can be easily understood by people with:
every level of education – we recommend a 5th grade reading level as a best practice,
low vision or blindness,
deafness,
limited movement and more.
Just as your style guide might indicate when content should be translated for Spanish speakers and how, it can also help your staff understand how to write useful visual descriptions (or alt text) for your social media or website images.
Unsure if the colors on your website provide sufficient contrast for people with color blindness and difficulty seeing? Use a contrast checker and provide guidance for your designers. It’s also a good idea to learn about the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and learn what content is and isn’t accessible on your website. Being honest about your limitations can help your team prioritize and meet folks where they are.
Model Inclusivity
The meaning of words is always changing — that’s how this wild thing called language works. But the responsibility we have to choose our words wisely and wield them with intention — that’s forever, baby!
Ask yourself:
Do the terms you use to identify people’s race and ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation model your commitment to inclusivity, or are you missing the mark?
How are you making assumptions about your readers? What are these assumptions, and how might they be harmful?
How does your organization’s storytelling prioritize the perspectives of diverse community members?
Are you using welcoming, inclusive messaging?
These are questions that your style guide can answer. The more examples you include – ones relevant to your organization – the more useful it will be to your team!
Don’t know where to start? Check out the University of Iowa’s extensive DEI Style Guide.
Visualize Your Values
Even if your team isn’t on Instagram or TikTok, they offer a lesson for your work. If you talk to a content creator on these popular platforms, you’ll quickly learn that visuals demand the same thoughtfulness that we bring to our writing.
The photos, illustrations, diagrams, and charts that you use to communicate with your audiences — on your website, email and social media — help people understand what you do and what you stand for.
So, a style guide that not only shows your team how to communicate but why it matters can’t afford to ignore everything visual. But don’t worry — you don’t need an art degree to write this guidance!
You can start by diversifying the photos you use, as long as they reflect the reality you’re communicating. Here’s what I mean.
Don’t. If your team features no people who use mobility aids, including a stock image of someone who uses a wheelchair on your team page is a no go. (We actually use all real photos of our team members at Forthright.)
Don’t. Likewise, if only one Black person attended your 50-person event, don’t include photos of them on every social recap. Seriously. You can show your team’s commitment to diverse hiring and programming by…well…committing to those things. Yes.
Do! But let’s say your team mostly interfaces with members of the Korean-American community — including photos of Korean American people of different ages, genders and abilities will reflect the reality that you and your audience share.
I know that showing your team the importance of communicating with compassion and honesty, no matter how big or small the call, is a tall order. But thankfully, they have you in their corner, and now you have your handy dandy Style Guide to back you up!
