“words like ‘text box’ written at the top of a text box”

I can’t count how many times that’s happened to me. If you mark up your copy clearly enough then you can happily hold your hands up and say ‘weren’t me guv’, but you’re always left questioning, backtracking through emails and wondering “was I really as crystal clear as I could have been?”

“Because the design and words need to work together to make the message clear.”

Yes, and the problems you describe are because more often than not, our bit (the words) is an afterthought - ok now we’ve spent €10000 designing this brochure I guess someone could think about a few words to stick in there too. Where’s that cheap intern we hired? Give him a company brochure and a dictionary and see what he can come up with, they can stick it in at the end, right?”