Inclusive content
The language choices about age, disability, gender, ethnicity, body and skin decide whether a health app is written for everybody or for a default reader.
The rule
Write about the person, not the category. Where a category is genuinely needed, use the words that group uses about itself.
Inclusive language in a consumer health product is not politeness. It is accuracy, and it is retention: a reader who is described in words they do not recognise concludes, correctly, that the product was not built with them in mind, and a reader who concludes that stops logging.
Six rules.
- The person is not the condition. "A person with diabetes", not "a diabetic". The condition is something they have; it is not what they are.
- Person-first is the default, identity-first is respected where it is preferred. Many autistic people and many Deaf people prefer identity-first language and say so. Follow the community, not the rule, and where a product knows the reader's preference, use it.
- Do not use the language of struggle. "Suffers from", "battling", "victim of", "confined to a wheelchair". A wheelchair is a mobility device, not a confinement, and most people living with a long-term condition are living with it rather than fighting it.
- Do not assume a default body. Health content routinely assumes an adult, able-bodied, cisgender, average-weight reader with a partner and a car. Every one of those assumptions shows up in copy as an unremarked "you".
- Separate sex and gender, and only ask for what you use. Some measurements and reference ranges are affected by sex assigned at birth; almost no copy is affected by gender. Asking for one when you need the other is both intrusive and wrong. The question design is on Ask users for sex and gender.
- Do not moralise about bodies or behaviour. Weight, diet, alcohol, smoking and exercise all attract judgemental vocabulary. State the measurement and the comparison; never the verdict.
Beyond words
Two things carry inclusion at least as much as vocabulary and are easy to forget in a content guide:
- Who is depicted. Illustration and photography in a health product make a statement about who it is for, and skin tone in particular is a clinical question as well as an equity one. Many descriptions of visible symptoms are written for light skin only. See Skin-tone representation.
- Whose names and addresses fit. A form that rejects a name with an apostrophe, a single-word name, or more than one surname has excluded people before it has said a word. See Ask users for a name.
Approved / Rejected
Do
Don’t
Do
Don’t
Do
Don’t
Do
Don’t
Do
Don’t
Do
Don’t
Patterns
Referring to a person with a condition
People / a personwithcondition
Referring to a group where identity-first is preferred
Identity termpeople
Used where that community's stated preference is identity-first, and where the product has no better information about the individual reader.
Describing a measurement without a verdict
Your
measurewasvalueunitondate.Comparison to their own history or to a range with an owner.
Asking for sex where a measurement needs it
Some of your results are worked out differently depending on the sex you were assigned at birth.
Question.We ask about gender separately.
Referring to a supporter
A partner, a family member or someone who helps you
Never "husband", "wife", "carer" or "family" as the assumed default.
Referring to the reader's body
your
named part
Plain, anatomical where needed, never euphemistic and never diminutive.
Describing a visible symptom
What to look for, which may lookdescription on lighter skinordescription on darker skin.
Both, always. A description written for one skin tone is a description that fails for the readers it does not cover.
Banned words
| Banned | Why | Use instead |
|---|---|---|
| diabetics, asthmatics, epileptics, the disabled | The condition replacing the person. | people with condition, disabled people |
| suffers from, battling, fighting, victim of | Frames a life as a struggle the reader may not feel. | has, lives with |
| confined to / bound to a wheelchair | A device that grants mobility described as a prison. | a wheelchair user, uses a wheelchair |
| normal (of people or bodies) | A verdict, and a default reader. | the specific comparison |
| obese, overweight, morbidly obese (in reader-facing copy) | Clinical categories that read as judgements. | the measurement, or the clinical term only where a clinician gave it |
| non-compliant, poorly controlled | Case-note language about a person, in their own app. | the factual description |
| elderly, the aged, seniors | Vague and othering. | older people, or the age range if it matters |
| special needs, differently abled, handicapped | Euphemism, and not the terms most disabled people use. | disabled people, or the specific access need |
| mothers-to-be, expecting mothers | Excludes people who are pregnant and do not use "mother". | pregnant people, or "you" |
| husband, wife, family (as the assumed supporter) | Assumes a household shape. | a partner or someone who helps you |
| ethnic, coloured, non-white | Imprecise, and defines people against a default. | the specific group, in the words used to collect it |
| let's work on that, we'll get you there | Coaching register applied to a body. | delete |
Related components
Termand the plain-English A to Z are where a clinical word with a respectful lay equivalent is fixed once.Fieldcovers labels for sex, gender, ethnicity and name; the format a field accepts is an inclusion decision as much as its wording.ConsentSheetasks permission, and must not assume who the reader shares with.CareCardcarries advice, and advice is where moralising vocabulary usually enters.ResultCarddescribes a body; the "no verdict" rule is its content contract.