Thomas, a freelance developer with over 15 years of experience, participated in the Making WordPress Understandable Together event I presented at. He asked me (sharing from memory, so slightly edited):
“How do you convince clients to simplify and remove unnecessary things?
In your presentation, you focused on optimizations, but sometimes, the best way to improve the CMS or the designs is to remove. Clients aren’t usually on board with this approach. Removal isn’t exciting to them, new shiny features are. How do you decide between when it’s time to optimize screens and when it’s time to delete content, and how do you communicate that to clients?
My answer: Every business benefits from less content. Getting people excited about removals is difficult because it literally goes against our biology. Our brains prefer addition over subtraction. You will need to have a clear understanding of their goals. Our duty as consultants is to connect the dots for them, not to say “it’s bad UX” (stat from the uxcon conference: most people interviewed in the streets of Vienna in 2025 didn’t know what UX is) and feel pleased that we advocated for users, but to connect the UX benefits of less content to the business goals.
- How will their business benefit from less content?
- How have you helped other businesses like theirs achieve their business goals by choosing less? Less content, fewer complicated features that serve a small number of customers, fewer ten-dollar words.*
- Will you be able to prove, either through existing data or desk research, how simplifying and deleting helped their goals?
Our duty as consultants is to connect the dots for clients between the user benefits of less content and the business goals.
That’s the short answer, and it matches 50% of what I said at the event. Thomas and I discussed after the presentation as well, so he received a more thorough answer, which I’ve shared here (for every question asked, 10 others are thinking it).
*Ten-dollar words are long, not widely known words that confuse most users
Ten-dollar words refer to big and pretentious words, generally longer words used in place of shorter, known words.
They don’t usually fit in web or app interfaces since they negatively affect user understanding. Companies trying to be accessible and inclusive target an 8th-grade reading level.
For example, imagine you’re scrolling a web page and see the headings below, which are supposed to help orient you. Which of the headings would you prefer as a website visitor?
- Indemnification Clause or Who Pays if Something Goes Wrong
- Termination for Convenience Provision or Your Right to Cancel the Agreement
Aim for an 8th-grade reading level for most of your text content, but be cautious of the dangers of mass-applying best practices.
Related posts
Should you be deleting old content? If you’re new to content audits and a stakeholder in one, this article clarifies goals and decisions. If you’re a content strategist, this is my approach to persuading stakeholders to delete content.
Propaganda I won’t be falling for: Throwing more content at problems to solve them
