Everybody Hurts: Content for Kindness

Sara Wachter-Boettcher, who runs a content strategy consultancy in Philadelphia and wrote Content Everywhere, gave this talk at Northern User Experience in 2015. We all want interfaces that feel human, with friendly content that flows. But being human isn’t only about being breezy.

Every user who comes to your site brings a personal history, with pain and problems, past traumas or present crises. Wachter-Boettcher asks how we can take users’ vulnerabilities, triggers and sensitive subjects into account when we don’t know what they are, and what it would mean to optimise not just for seamlessness but for kindness.

The talk shows how clear intentions and compassionate communication can strengthen everything from form questions to headlines to site structures, making it useful for anyone working on content strategy, content design or UX writing.