Goodtale newsletter > 10 March 2025

Writing for people

And good content around durability and repair

Charlotte Daniels

Last week was all about the planet, this week I’m turning my focus to people and how we can write good content for them.

1. Content resources

Good content for people

Writing well for people means considering both their needs (what are they looking for from you) and your goals (what you want to communicate).

Good content for people is:

• Useful:
  • It meets a need
  • It’s considered – includes the right information at the right time
• Usable:
  • Clear
  • Easy to find
  • Easy to read and understand
• Responsible:
  • Accessible and inclusive for everyone
  • Accurate. Truthful and doesn’t deceive or mislead
  • Ethical – doesn’t manipulate or harm

Descriptive links

One simple thing you can do to make your content better for people is to write descriptive links. Writing ‘click here’ or ‘here’ isn’t useful, usable or responsible.

Instead, describe where the link goes and what will happen when people open it.

Descriptive link text is also better for your business:

• People are more likely to open links if they know where they go
• It helps search engines understand the content of links, improving SEO

2. Good content

Durability and rewear

I enjoyed Asket’s update on their wardrobe test experiment, where they’ve asked 50 male customers and staff to rewear the same 8 items of clothing for a year. So far they’ve found that most items are holding up to continuous wear. Another finding was that even with only 8 items in a wardrobe, some things are on a heavy rotation while others are hardly worn.

It’s still surprisingly rare for brands to mention durability or longevity in their product descriptions, or at all. One exception is running brand Nnormal, which shows how their shoes wear across hundreds of kilometres.

3. Good things

Innovation: Radiant Matter

Instead of plastic, Radiant Matter use naturally shimmering biomaterials to create non-toxic, biodegradable sequins. They’re already being used by designers like Stella McCartney.

Walk: Slow ways

Slow Ways is a creating a national walking network to connect Britain through walkable routes between towns, cities and villages. You can contribute by adding and pioneering routes in your local area.

Read: 4,000 weeks

Not got enough time? 4,000 weeks by Oliver Burkeman turns everything you thought you knew about productivity on its head. Instead, it focuses on our limits. Life is only so long (4,000 weeks on average) and we can only do so much. Missing out is inevitable. Accepting this forces you to focus on what really matters to you. It’s already on my re-read list.