Think about the last time you read something under less than ideal conditions. Maybe you were skimming a document on your phone between meetings. Maybe you were exhausted, overwhelmed, or reading in a second language. Maybe you were reading in dim light at a restaurant or bar.
Now think about who’s reading your communications: your grant reports, donor updates, board materials, or volunteer guides. They are not always sitting at a desk, fully rested, in good light, with unlimited time. Your readers are humans in variable conditions, with variable needs, on variable devices.
The good news: most of what gets in their way isn’t necessarily your writing—it could be how the text is formatted. The easy changes below are design rules that don’t require a designer, and can be easily made by anyone looking to make their communications more inclusive and accessible for everyone.
1. Choose your font deliberately — and size it generously
Arial and Calibri are usually the default fonts on your machines for a reason. Sans serif fonts (those without the small decorative strokes at the ends of letters) reduce visual noise and are easier to parse for a wide range of readers on digital devices. However, when it comes to print, serif fonts, like Times New Roman or Georgia, are often easier to read. A good designer can help you determine which font type works best for the document you’re creating.
The rule of thumb is to use a 12 point font or larger. But that rule also depends on the typeface. Twelve-point Poppins reads larger than 12-point Calibri, which reads larger than 12-point Times New Roman. And decorative fonts often need to be even larger. But strong color contrast can let you get away with reducing the font size, so long as the end product is still clear and legible. The visual result matters more than the number. Your document tool’s default is almost always not generous enough. If you have to squint when you move from your monitor to your phone, it’s too small.
2. Always left-align. Never justify.
Justified text (where both edges of a paragraph are perfectly flush) can look tidy. But it works by inserting uneven spaces between words, which creates irregular rivers of white space running through the paragraph. For many readers, those rivers are distracting or disorienting.
Left-aligned text has a ragged right edge and a consistent left anchor, which makes it significantly easier to track across lines and find your place when you look back up. This is a one-click fix in every document tool you use.
3. Shift the contrast
Pure black text on a pure white background creates a level of contrast that is actually too sharp for comfortable extended reading: it can cause glare and visual fatigue. Dark grey text on an off-white or very light warm background is easier to sustain. This doesn’t require a brand overhaul. In a Word document, it might mean simply changing your page color to the lightest cream or your default text to 90% black or very dark gray.
But contrast is a goldilocks problem: too little and it will become difficult for people with low vision to read. Contrast is evaluated on a scale where 1:1 is white text on a white background and 21:1 is black text on a white background. You want something in the sweet spot ratio of 4.5:1 to meet the minimum standard or 18:1 for enhanced contrast. If you are unsure of where your color choice falls in a contrast line up, WebAccessibilityInMind has a Contrast Checker that can help.
4. Use bold for emphasis online. Only bold.
Italics are harder to parse. Underlines signal hyperlinks. All-caps read as shouting and are harder to scan. Bold is the clearest, most universally readable way to signal that something matters for digital documents.
An alternative is to use a different font for words you want to emphasize. But this is a level 200 design move and you’ll want a skilled designer to help you out here. You want fonts that complement one another, not clash.
5. Give your lines room to breathe
Single spacing is technically fine for print. For screen reading, it forces readers to work harder to track from the end of one line to the beginning of the next. 1.15-1.5 line spacing reduces accidental line-skipping and makes the page feel more approachable before anyone reads a word.
The ideal line length is also 50-75 characters per line. Very short or very long line lengths can be detrimental to readability.
6. Never use color as the only differentiator
This tip matters most in charts, graphs, and any visual that uses color to categorize. If the only way to tell two data sets apart is that one is red and one is green, your colorblind readers may miss the content. Pair color with a pattern, a label, a shape or a white outline. An easy way to test this: print your document in grayscale. It is not like being color blind, but it will double check if your chart is accessible.
Bonus: if a callout box is the only signal of importance on a colored background, add a bold header or an icon to help.
7. Make your links descriptive
Descriptive links are better for accessibility, better for comprehension, and better for trust. “Click here” and “learn more” are navigation dead ends. For folks using screen readers, “click here” tells them there is a button there. “Download the 2024 Impact Report” tells them exactly what they’re getting and why they might want to click your button.
8. Let the page breathe
Long, unbroken paragraphs are fatiguing. Not because readers can’t handle it, but because there’s no visual rest. Keep paragraphs to two to five sentences where possible. Use white space between sections generously. It’s not wasted space, it’s a signal that a new idea is starting.
9. Give readers a map
Heading hierarchy—using H1, H2, and H3 styles rather than just making text bigger or bold—does two things. It creates visual structure that makes a document scannable. It, also, creates navigational structure for screen readers, which use headings to let users jump between sections. A document with no real heading hierarchy is a document with no map.
10. Capitalize intentionally
Title Case for headings reads more cleanly than ALL CAPS and is easier to process than all lowercase. For hashtags and website URLs, use CamelCase — #InclusiveDesign rather than #inclusivedesign, www.BrevityAndWit.com rather than www.brevityandwit.com.
It’s a small formatting choice with a meaningful payoff: screen readers parse CamelCase as separate words rather than attempting the whole string as one unbroken sound. The difference between #nonprofitleaders and #NonprofitLeaders can be the difference between annoyance and ease.
11. Paste as plain text
The documents that look inconsistent weren’t designed that way, they were assembled one copy and paste at a time. When you copy and paste text from one source to another, you are also carrying the first document’s formatting. Designers call this the ransom note effect and once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
The fix is simple: paste as plain text using Ctrl+Shift+V (or Cmd+Shift+V on Mac) and let your document’s own formatting take over.
Someone once said “When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing.” But if your formatting is poor, your hard work will be for naught. Some readers might push through, but others won’t. None of the changes above are budget-breaking. They just require applying design principles with the same thoughtfulness with which you use words.
This article was written by Sage Eubanks with the help of claude.ai. As a small business, we thoughtfully engage artificial intelligence to improve our efficiency, while also using human experts and reviewers to ensure quality and mitigate bias. Photo by Mikhail Nilov