Intelligence Community Design System

The way we write, and how we present it , can make or break an experience. Use this content style guide to support readability and engagement of your written content and apps.

We've created this guide with inspiration from Mozilla , the UK Government Digital Service (GDS) and some of the best commercial design systems.

This guide applies to content you write in apps (like error messages) through to user guides and corporate comms.

Our goal is to create informative, helpful and clear content. This isn't about 'dumbing content down' — our job is to 'open it up'. We want as many people as possible to understand and engage with what we write.

Have a look at research commissioned by GDS on the impact of style guides. This will tell you more about why we recommend speaking in an 'active voice', using short sentences, subheadings, simple vocabulary and always writing in plain English.

The more readable text is the more easily users can understand its content. Text with poor readability turns off readers and can make it challenging for them to stay focused.