Inclusive language guides
Inclusive language is important when we’re describing groups of people. For example, particular groups of people we’re researching with or designing for.
The language we use can make people feel welcomed, valued, and included, or dismissed and excluded. It has an impact on everyone we communicate with, whether they are colleagues, clients, or members of the public.
Inclusive language avoids making assumptions based on people’s characteristics, such as their ethnicity, disability, gender, sexual orientation, or age.
Our approach to inclusive writing #
We only refer to people’s characteristics or identity when they’re relevant to what we’re talking about.
When communicating with or about an individual, don’t make assumptions, ask them about the terms they use to talk about themselves. Allow people to self-identify as much as possible.
When working on a project, you should always refer to the client’s style guides. If you have concerns or questions about out of date language in a style guide, contact the content team in Slack at #dxw-content-design.
It’s important to note that there’s rarely one right word to describe a group of people, identity, or characteristic. And not all terms are well understood. Language is always evolving, so we’ll regularly review and update this guide.
How to write inclusively about different topics #
We’ve reviewed several style guides and we think the ones mentioned below provide the most comprehensive and up-to-date recommendations. We’ve provided summaries on each of the topics and more information is available in each of the guides.
Age #
Only include the age of individuals or groups if it’s relevant and be as specific as possible when referring to people by their age. For example, adults aged 25 or over.
The NHS guidance on age has more information.
Disability #
We use disabled people or person when we’re addressing or writing for a general audience. This is because we follow the social model of disability. You can learn more about this and other models for disability from Scope.
Some people may prefer disabled or people/person with disabilities. We use the term the person uses when communicating with or about an individual.
Spike Island’s guidance on writing about disabled people has more information.
Family #
Family can mean different things to different people so we recommend using gender-neutral terms as much as possible. When speaking with or writing about an individual, we use their preferred language to describe family members.
University of Bristol’s guidance on writing about family has more information.
Mental health #
Use mental health condition or mental health problems.
Spike Island’s guidance on writing about mental health has more information.
Neurotypical, neurodivergent, and neurodiverse #
When addressing or writing for a general audience, we use the terms neurotypical people or person and neurodivergent people or person. We don’t describe individuals as neurodiverse.
Spike Island’s guidance on writing about neurodivergence has more information.
Race, ethnicity, and nationality #
We describe ethnic groups and a person’s ethnic background - such as Black Caribbean, White British, or mixed ethnic background.
We treat Black and White as proper nouns and give them capital letters.
We believe using the term people of the global majority for people who are Asian, Asian British, Black, Black British, Caribbean or African, or from multiple ethnic groups is the most inclusive. As always, use the preferred language of a group or of individuals especially for identifying characteristics.
Spike Island’s guidance on writing about race and ethnicity and the University of Bristol’s guidance on writing about ethnicity and race and nationality have more information.
Religion #
Only refer to people’s religion if it’s relevant and use people’s preferred language as much as possible.
Spike Island’s guidance on writing about religion has more information.
Sex, gender, sexual orientation, and pronouns #
We use the umbrella term LGBTQIA+ to refer to people who are not straight and cisgender, or who are intersex.
When addressing or writing for a general audience, we use they, them, and their pronouns.
When speaking with or writing about an individual, we use pronouns they use.
We use gender inclusive language and avoid gender biased words and phrases. For example, in this Playbook we refer to “we” and “you”.
Stonewall’s guidance on pronouns and Spike Island’s guidance on sex and gender identity and sexual orientation have more information.
Socioeconomic background #
Only refer to socioeconomic background if it’s relevant and use people’s preferred language as much as possible.
Spike Island’s guidance on writing about socioeconomic backgrounds has more information.
Contact the content team on Slack at #dxw-content-design if you have concerns, questions or suggestions about this guide.
Last updated: 23 July 2024 (history)