Reducing cognitive load and removing friction creates digital experiences that are easier to navigate for all. For those in crisis, there are additional considerations to ensure that people are safe when using your site.
The following are steps we take at Clearleft when designing for people in crisis.
Reduce cognitive load
At a time of crisis, there is a situational change in ability to process information. Sites and pages relating to crisis services need to be as easy to understand as possible.
Avoid walls of text that are hard to digest. The same goes for long words and sentences, as well as industry or technical terms that may not be understood by all. Consider those with lower reading abilities or English as a second language, and don’t exclude them from help or information.
Understand your audience
Where appropriate, use first-person relatable language, especially for immediate actions. Sites offering crisis services (including Refuge) use call to action labels like ‘I need help now’ or ‘I need to speak to someone’.
These phrases relate to feelings the user will already be experiencing, and aids navigation through the site.
Prioritise the important
Urgent actions should be prioritised higher up the page to limit the amount of scrolling before finding help. Users should not be expected to scroll through large images, case studies and figures that do not relate to their current situation, before finding support.
National domestic violence support charities report that over 65-75% of survivors accessing online help services do so via mobile devices rather than desktop computers.
Designs must be fully responsive on mobile, and offer priority actions in the landing zone.
Build trust
In general, adhering to good UX principles increases trust.
Use familiar patterns that follow expected interaction behaviours. Unexpected behaviours could slow down comprehension of how to access help, and increase anxiety or frustration for users.
Regularly check your site for broken or outdated links. These may lead users to believe that the site is no longer live or updated, and they won’t receive help.
Keep people safe
People seeking crisis and other support services may be at a high risk whilst doing so.
Quick exit buttons are commonly used on domestic violence sites such as Refuge, the UK Goverment’s Enough campaign and Hotline.org. These allow the user to ‘escape’ to another neutral site (i.e. news sites or the Google homepage) and avoid others seeing the information they are looking at. This option should be clearly labelled and available in the landing zone on mobile and desktop.
Direct chat (e.g. via whatsapp or another encrypted service), email, phone etc. should be clearly displayed and easy to copy and save. This can also help users leave a site as quickly as possible.
Avoid sound alerts or haptics if chat functionality or other pop ups are used. These may alert others around the user that a chat function is being accessed. Reassure a user (if offering a direct chat option) that this will be silent and unobtrusive.