Designing content for people with limited English

22 Apr 2025 11:12 AM

Blog posted by:  and , 17 September 2024 – Categories: Content, User centred design.

An image of two content designers working in front of a laptop.

The Home Office is the lead government department for immigration, visas, passports and asylum in the United Kingdom ('the UK'). The people we serve might be new to the country or accessing our services from overseas.

Not all of them will speak English. And those who do may still be learning.

For this reason, the Home Office offers interpreters and translations for some of our services. Our digital products aim to provide non-digital alternatives for those who want to speak to a person.

But the majority of our content is written in English, and this presents an obvious challenge for many of our users.

Using understandable language ensures everyone has equal access to critical government services and also reduces inequalities and protects people's rights.

Tips for writing for people who do not understand English

At Home Office Digital, Data and Technology we’ve been designing with language barriers in mind for a while now.

Back in 2015, our colleagues Amanda Summers-Plotno and Ben Stevens wrote a blog on writing for non-native English speakers. But a lot has happened in the UK government and internationally since then.

We have built on that guidance and used our recent experiences to put together some tips for anyone who needs to design for people with limited English.

More detail is given in our guide to designing for users with limited English, available on the Home Office Design System.

Be really clear and concise

Reading and understanding information is much slower if you have limited English.  

People may interact with the Home Office at stressful times in their life, which already affects comprehension. Research has also shown that long and technical content makes people anxious.

This makes the use of clear language really important.

And though you already do this across all your services, you may have to be even plainer than you think. Here are some words we have discovered limited English speakers find hard to understand:

Testing is really important in these cases.

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