It’s a common issue for many websites: your audience consists of people with different levels of understanding of the words and phrasing used on your website.
You may have new employees or new customers unfamiliar with the jargon, acronyms, and language on your site. In addition, you may have customers and others who interact with your website frequently and understand your words and phrasing.
And you may have long-time employees who are well-versed in your wording, who have no need for terminology definitions.
How do you serve all your audiences?
In her Online Glossaries presentation at the 2021 Federal Plain Language Summit, Alison Kohler talked about how online glossaries can serve people with different levels of understanding.
Kohler highlighted two options for creating online glossaries and proposed strategies for developing the glossary as well as what user experience and functionality to consider.
Here are my notes from her talk.
Online Glossaries
- Two options to consider for an online glossary: static page or sitewide option
- Pros for a static page: if your site is the only one talking about the term, your page will display high in search results, one dedicated place to point people to, less resource intensive to begin and maintain
- Pros for a sitewide option: more user-friendly to have definition on the page people are reading (they don’t have to navigate to a new page) and good engagement rate
- What do you need to create a glossary? Data. Review most viewed pages, find out what your top queried terms are. Use SiteImprove to look up terms used on your site (you can find out how many times a term is used).
- Avoid using subject matter experts what terms they think belong in the glossary
- Use a spreadsheet to list terms, plain definitions, URL source, and number of times the term is used on your site
- Consider using accordions in your design to avoid cognitive overload. Presenting a page with all terms and definitions expanded can be overwhelming.
- Provide a legal disclaimer and feedback option on missing terms/problems. Check the GSA glossary page for a disclaimer example.
- Limit your glossary list (so it’s easy for people to use and for you to maintain)
- Check and prune your list regularly, once or twice a year. Make sure your definitions are accurate.
