Skip to main content

Take a digital-first approach

People scan content online. They don’t read word-for-word.

You might also not have their full attention, especially if they’re using a mobile device.

65% of our visitors use their mobiles to access our website. Think about how your content will work on a mobile device. For example, because a mobile screen is much smaller, pages will look much longer than they would on a desktop.

Making your content digital-friendly will make sure it's mobile-friendly, too.

Good content uses:

  • short sentences
  • a scannable structure with headings and sub-headings
  • simple words.

To make your content digital-friendly:

  • keep it simple and to the point
  • use short paragraphs and titles
  • front-load content for easy scanning
  • chunk content for easy reading
  • break it up with lists and bullet points 
  • use descriptive headings
  • keep media file sizes small. 

See advice from GOV.UK on writing well for the web.

Structure your content well

A good content structure:

  • helps search engines find our content
  • helps visitors scan and find their way through content
  • helps visitors complete a task.

Structure your content to make it scannable:

Keep sentences to 25 words or less

Shorten sentences by:

  • breaking them into multiple sentences
  • limiting each sentence to one idea
  • removing unnecessary words.

Try to use simple sentences with only one verb.

Use active voice, not passive voice.

Keep paragraphs 2 to 3 sentences long

Express one main idea per paragraph. If your paragraphs are too long, you might be trying to say too much in one place. Consider starting a new paragraph or using a list. 

Don’t introduce a new idea in the middle or at the end of a paragraph. Start a new paragraph instead.

Front-load your content

On average, people only read about 20 to 28% of a webpage. When scanning, they focus most on the first few words of headings.

When you write a sentence, paragraph, title, heading, bullet point item or link, ‘front load’ it by putting the most important keywords at the beginning.

Write simply, in plain English

The easier text is to read, the more people can understand and use it.

40% of New Zealand adults have low literacy levels.

If our content is not easy to read, we’re not meeting our audience’s needs.

People with low literacy may struggle to read:

  • words with more than 2 syllables
  • long sentences
  • large amounts of information
  • lots of uncommon words
  • complex sentence structures
  • jargon.

Making content easy to read helps everyone.

Research from Nielsen Norman shows that making content more readable for low-literacy readers helps high-literacy readers understand it too.

There is now a Plain Language Bill in New Zealand, which means that we are legally required to write readable content.

Readability tools

Use these tools to check if your writing is easy to read:

They'll give your content a ‘reading age’ score. This score tells you how readable your content is.

Aim for a maximum reading age of 12. The lower the reading age, the better.

Every tool works differently. This means their results can vary.

Search engine optimisation (SEO)

If you write for your readers, you’re writing for search engines. SEO helps your content to show up on the front page of search results from Google and other search engines.

To make your content SEO-friendly:

  • use the language your readers use
  • use keywords in titles, headings, sub-headings and meta descriptions (brief summaries of the page that show up in Google results), but do not overdo it, the content must still make sense
  • use Google Trends to understand what content your users are searching for.

Digital accessibility

We have a responsibility to ensure users of all backgrounds and accessibility needs can engage with our content. All of our online content must meet the NZ Government Web Accessibility Standard.

We must make sure our content is:

  • perceivable — information and user interface must be presented in ways that users can access through different senses
  • operable — users must be able to navigate and interact with content using different input devices, for example through a keyboard instead of a mouse
  • understandable — content must be readable and understandable
  • robust — content must be robust enough to be interpreted by all users and assistive technologies.

Read more about our Auckland Transport accessibility guidelines.
Last updated