Making Sense:
Language for Real People
A reflective case study about course creation.
This course grew out of a pattern I kept noticing in my work: language that was technically correct, but functionally exclusionary.
As an information architect and UX designer, I regularly work with content meant to serve multiple audiences at once — people with different levels of familiarity, different emotional relationships to the topic, and different reasons for showing up. Through that work, and through my role as Sensemaker in Residence with The Sensemakers Club, I spent a lot of time examining how language either supports understanding or quietly creates distance.
Words Shape Belonging emerged from that tension.
Working closely with Abby Covert, the course was shaped around a shared question: how do we help people make sense of complex ideas without flattening them or turning respect into a checklist? Rather than focusing on prescriptive rules, the course looks at how people experience language — where it creates clarity, where it excludes, and where it signals who the content is really for.
The curriculum is organized around two broad categories: inclusive language and exclusive language. Inclusive language explores accessibility and respect — whether language can be understood, and whether it allows people to feel seen without being singled out. Exclusive language examines complexity and specialization — when technical language is necessary for accuracy, and when it functions more as gatekeeping.
A core design constraint was resisting the urge to make respectful language feel procedural. While practical tools are introduced, the course prioritizes awareness, reflection, and discussion. Participants analyze real content, audit assumptions, and practice translating ideas across audiences. The goal isn’t perfection — it’s better instincts.
The course is discussion-based by design. Short lectures create shared context, but the real work happens through conversation and applied exercises. That structure mirrors how language decisions are made in practice: collaboratively, iteratively, and often imperfectly.
At its core, Words Shape Belonging is about slowing down and choosing language with more intention — at work, and beyond it.
What I did…
What I learned…
Respectful language can’t be reduced to rules — awareness matters more
Examining complexity openly builds more trust than avoiding it
Discussion surfaces insights lectures alone can’t
Language frameworks work best when they invite curiosity, not compliance
Designed and structured a multi-week, discussion-based course on language use
Developed a framework centered on inclusive vs. exclusive language
Wrote lectures, discussion prompts, and applied exercises
Iterated on the course through collaboration and facilitation