07: Design Principles for School Communication
Design for Clarity (part 1 of 5)
You’re searching through your principal’s weekly email for the third time.
You know that deadline is in there somewhere. Was it paragraph two? Or five?
Eventually, you give up and send a message: “Quick question about that deadline...”
Then you realize: if you can’t find it, what about everyone else?
The moment you’re on the receiving end of unclear communication, everything shifts. Suddenly you start seeing design differently.
I’m writing this from Hanoi 🇻🇳, where I’m drinking Vietnamese coffee strong enough to power a motorbike (and trust me, there are about 5 million of those weaving around me right now). The pace here makes Bucharest look like a meditation retreat!
I’m here leading marketing for Learning2 Worldwide, working alongside this incredible team to bring together educators from across Asia.
And here’s what spending time in this beautiful, complex city has reminded me: when dozens of educators descend on a conference, the communication principles that keep everyone on track are exactly the same ones that would fix your overwhelming inbox.
This week kicks off a five-part mini-course I’ve called Design for Clarity—and by the end, you’ll have a complete system for designing communication that actually works for everyone.
Each week, I’ll share one core strategy you can implement immediately.
At the end of the series, the complete course (with video walkthroughs, interactive templates, and implementation tools) will be available for those who want the full deep-dive.
🎧 Prefer Audio?
Here’s a human-recorded audio version with Chief Voice Officer Kirk McDavitt. Hit play, or keep reading below.
Practical Design for Everyday Communication
And What I Mean By “Design”
By “design,” I mean the principles that make information findable, understandable, and actionable—even when your reader is distracted, tired, or reading on a cracked phone screen while dodging motorbikes. (Too specific? Maybe.)
You already use these instinctively when you teach or host workshops.
You pause on important points.
You underline key terms.
You organize the board so your learners can follow.
Design principles just translate that teaching instinct into written communication, so your emails, assignments, and reports work as clearly as your lessons.
Here’s What Happens When Design Breaks
Teachers reread your weekly update twice and still miss the deadline.
Students submit incomplete work because they couldn’t find the requirements.
Parents email asking questions you just answered, because the information was buried in paragraph four.
You end up answering the same question over and over, wondering why no one reads carefully anymore.
But they are reading. They’re just scanning for signals.
And when every line looks equally important, their brain treats it all equally: as background noise.
Five Principles That Fix This
The best part? They work for everything, whether you’re writing to students, parents, staff, or your board.
Principle 1: Proximity
Related information lives together
Think about what happens when you scatter related details across a page. Your reader has to hold multiple pieces in memory while hunting for connections. Their brain is working overtime just to piece together what belongs with what.
That creates cognitive load, and that mental effort is the enemy of clarity.
Principle 2: Hierarchy
Most important information is most prominent
Here’s the reality: your reader’s eye is always looking for patterns, always asking “what matters most here?”
Hierarchy answers that question visually.
When you make critical information impossible to miss—through size, weight, color, or position—you’re guiding their eye exactly where it needs to go.
Principle 3: Repetition
Consistent patterns create familiarity
When you use the same structure every time—same email format, same assignment template, same board report layout—something interesting happens.
Your readers stop spending mental energy figuring out your format. That energy goes straight to understanding your actual content instead.
Principle 4: Contrast
Important things stand out from routine things
You’ve probably noticed this yourself: when everything is bold, nothing is bold.
Contrast is what helps your reader distinguish urgent from routine, required from optional, action from context. But it only works when you save strong contrast for what genuinely deserves that level of attention.
Principle 5: White Space
Intentional emptiness improves comprehension
White space isn’t wasted space—it’s breathing room.
It groups related information together, separates different ideas, and keeps your page from feeling overwhelming. Think of it as the visual pause that helps your reader process what they’re seeing.
Before and After: Watch These Principles Transform an Assignment
Here’s what we often see:
BEFORE:
Welcome to Unit 3! For this project you’ll research one historical figure from the time period we’ve been studying and create a presentation. The presentation should be 5 slides and you’ll present it to the class for 3-5 minutes. Make sure to include a works cited page with at least 3 sources. The due date is Monday, March 10 by 11:59 PM. If you want extra credit you can interview a family member about how this historical figure influenced their life or create a timeline of major events. The rubric is attached at the bottom of this page. If you need help, come to the homework help room on Tuesdays from 3-4 PM.What’s wrong here? Proximity, hierarchy, white space, contrast—not good.
Requirements are tangled with suggestions. The due date is buried mid-paragraph. The rubric reference gets lost at the end.
And what happens for the learner? They scroll, they get confused, they give up, they plan to ask tomorrow, then they forget, and finally, they submit incomplete work.
And you’re once again frustrated, wondering why they can’t just follow directions.
Now let’s redesign it:
AFTER:
UNIT 3 PROJECT — RESEARCH PRESENTATION DUE: Monday, March 10 by 11:59 PM
WHAT YOU MUST DO:
— Research one historical figure from our unit
— Create 5-slide presentation
— Present to class (3-5 minutes)
— Submit works cited page with 3+ sources
— Full rubric: [link]
OPTIONAL EXTENSIONS:
— Interview family member about this figure’s influence
— Create timeline of major events
NEED HELP?
Homework Help Room: Tuesdays 3-4 PMSo, what changed?
Proximity: Related requirements are grouped together: all the must-dos live in one section, all the optional stuff in another.
Hierarchy: The due date is impossible to miss. It’s at the top, it’s bold, and your eye lands there immediately.
Contrast: Required vs. optional is crystal clear. No more students doing the extensions and skipping the actual requirements.
Repetition: Make this the template for every assignment. Learners know exactly where to look for what they need.
White space: Everything has room to breathe. Your eye can process one section before moving to the next.
The result? Learners understand in 15 seconds instead of 3 confused minutes.
But First: You Need to See Where Clarity Breaks Down
Before you can apply these principles, you need to diagnose where your current communication is failing. And I have a powerful mapping technique to recommend: Journey Mapping.
Journey mapping shows you your reader’s step-by-step experience, including every emotion and obstacle along the way.
But first, let me show you what journey mapping actually looks like in practice.
The Nielsen Norman Group (NN/g) has a great explainer on journey mapping fundamentals:
(If you’re not familiar with NN/g, they’re the gold standard for user experience research—because your community members are users of your communication systems.)
Now here’s how to adapt this for school communication:
Pick one specific communication (weekly email, assignment template, board report)
List every step your reader takes to find information or complete a task
Note how they feel at each step (confident? confused? frustrated?)
Identify where negative emotions appear
Put AI to Work: Once you’ve identified pain points, use AI to help you brainstorm solutions.
Those negative emotions reveal design problems you can fix with the five principles we just discussed.
For example, if your journey map shows teachers getting frustrated at Step 3 (”Scroll through email to find link to form”), that’s a proximity problem—the link should live right next to the instruction, not three paragraphs later.
If it shows parents feeling uncertain at Step 2 (”Figure out which date applies to my child”), that’s a hierarchy problem—the most relevant information isn’t prominent enough.
Your Move This Week
Journey map one communication you send regularly.
Pick something—a weekly email, assignment template, board report
Recruit three actual readers.
Watch them try to find three pieces of information. Time them. Note where they struggle.
Then ask yourself: which of the five principles would fix each friction point?
To help you get started, I’ve created a Journey Mapping Quick Start Guide that’s easy to share with colleagues so you can work together on this.
What’s Coming Next
This is just one piece of the puzzle. Over the next four weeks, we’ll build on these five principles—exploring how to make them work in real school contexts, how to implement them across your communication systems, and how to get your team on board without adding to anyone’s workload.
Next week: Part 2 — Visual Hierarchy: Making Priority Obvious at a Glance
The complete Design for Clarity mini-course—with video walkthroughs, interactive templates, before/after libraries, and implementation tools—will be available at the end of this series for those who want the full system.
For now, go map one journey! You’ll be amazed what 15 minutes of observation reveals.
Your Experience
Have you ever journey-mapped a communication process? Or caught yourself on the receiving end of a confusing email and thought “there has to be a better way”?
Hit reply and tell me what you discover when you watch real people interact with your communication. I read every message.
Systematically yours,
About the Author:
G (short for Gitane) is co-founder and Chief Creative Officer at EKG Collective, helping international schools turn communication complexity into systematic clarity. Learn more at ekgcollective.com.
Very practical advice! Thank you!