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The main message should reflect the purpose and most important information in the material. You can combine the main message statement and the call to action (what you want people to do after receiving and understanding the main message), or they can be separate sentences.

When you feature main message prominently, people can find it more easily and quickly.

Use a visual hierarchy to prioritize information and help people scan for what they most need.

When you use visual cues to draw attention to the main message, people will more easily and quickly recognize its meaning. Examples of visual cues are:

• Size
• Boldface
• Color
• Shape
• Surrounding white space or image backgrounds
• Font type
• Orientation and alignment
• Lines and arrows
• Heading, such as “What you need to know”

To make visual cues compatible with web accessibility guidelines, include descriptive alternative text, such as “The main message is...,” for the screen reader.

When clearly designed and not overloaded with information, images can help people easily and quickly grasp information and find meaning. The words and visuals in the material should convey the same message and reinforce each other.

Labels and captions will help audiences easily interpret and quickly get the gist of a complicated visual and reduce chances of misinterpretation.

People want to know what they should do with the information you've given them. Even when your purpose is to inform an audience, think about why they need this information, and use this insight to create a call to action.

Active voice is used most often in conversation, and it allows the subject of the sentence to perform the action. People use the active voice because it is more accurate, direct, precise, and interesting. Using the third person plural voice lets the audience interpret themselves as part of a larger group, without feeling forced or commanded to engage.

Familiar words use recognized more quickly and with less effort by the brain, leading to less confusion.

• Be cautious with slang, colloquial, metaphorical, or offensive language. Metaphors, in particular, can either help or hinder your message depending on how well they are used.
• Identify and explain unfamiliar terms in the same sentence or immediately after.
• Use acronyms and abbreviations very sparingly, and spell them out and explain what they refer to.
• If people don’t need to know the full word or phrase, use alternative phrasing.
• Testing the material with people and small groups of your audience can tell you if you have used the language that will resonate.

• Use lists to break up text in the body of the material and make information easier to scan and read.
• Lists with more than 7 items should be broken into sub-lists.

Chunked text and information helps audiences group similar ideas, build relationships, and recall its meaning.

• accurately reflect the information that follows
• are visually distinct (in font style, size, and with spacing) from the body text of the document
• are separated from other chunks by more white space above the heading than below

Present information so that the amount doesn't overwhelm the audience. You don't need to provide all the information you have in one material. You can provide the audience ways to get additional or related information if they want it.

Use a visual hierarchy to prioritize information and help people scan for what they most need.

Be clear and concise about what is known, but also communicate and acknowledge uncertainty about data, findings, recommendations, guidance, and action steps. What we know today may not be fully accurate or sufficient to answer all of the public’s questions. Acknowledging uncertainty introduces the idea that scientific findings and policy recommendations may change over time as people learn and improve.

Tell people upfront what they can do to prevent and prepare for climate change. Practical recommendations are specific, meaningful activities that people can take to protect their personal and family health. When you create climate change-based messages, focus on practices, their meaning, and what they enable rather than isolated behaviors, facts, or statistics.

Give people reasons why they should (or should not adopt) new practices and tell them possible consequences of adopting (or not adopting) them.

In addition to recommending practices, be sure to provide people with steps to help them adopt those practices. Be as specific as possible about:

• specific actions or tasks
• how often or how long the new practice takes
• the materials or skills needed to make it successful
• locations
• likely obstacles and ways to avoid or resolve them

Most people find it challenging to interpret percentages, decimals, fractions and other numbers commonly used in research, science, and policy. For example, many people have difficulty with very large and very small numbers and measurement units such as milligrams. Always ask potential audience members about their understanding of numbers used in the material. If you unable to do audience research, use numbers most often used by non-experts, such as whole numbers.

Note: There are some instances in which decimals are commonly used, such as human body temperature (98.6 degrees).

Explain the meaning and provide the number when using qualitative descriptions of amounts, such as "high" and "low" or "large" and "small". Avoid using qualitative or quantitative descriptors by themselves. Always provide comparisons and give context for what they mean.

Be sure to do the math rather than expect others to make the calculations themselves. Provide calculations and conversions so that people are able to follow the logic, and so they aren’t distracted, misinformed, confused or intimidated by the numbers and formulas.

State the cause and effect connection(s) between the risk and the effects of being at risk. Provide enough information so that audiences can evaluate what the risk means to them and how they might be affected.

• What will happen if they don’t take the recommended actions or perform behaviors to protect or promote their health?
• Will they experience a minor, temporary inconvenience or a life-changing event with long-term effects?

Recognize that different groups of people may perceive risks and benefits differently. Non-expert audiences may interpret them differently than academics, public health practitioners, environmentalists, or policy makers. To make informed decisions, people need to understand the risks (perceived and actual) and benefits (perceived and actual) of practices, treatments, and preventive measures. They also need to understand how those risks and benefits apply directly to their concerns.

People better understand probabilities when they are presented with words and visuals that match and reinforce the meaning of the numbers than when numbers are presented alone.