Booking.com
Content Moderation Report (DSA) Visual Design
TL;DR
Problem: The first EU DSA-compliant moderation report had to live inside a flat PDF, yet still feel clear, on-brand, and transparent to regulators and the public.
My Move: Created a visual system (layout, hierarchy, color, illustrations) that turned raw legal data into a readable story, WCAG-AA accessible, and instantly recognizable as Booking.com.
Impact: avg. 3-min read, 85% of internal reviewers called it “clear & informative,” and audit time went down 15%.
Timebound: 4 months
Role: Visual Designer
Tools: Whiteboards, Figma, Maze
Where we started
Different tracks owned different data (Legal, Brand, Content Integrity, Data Analysts) and the deliverable was a static PDF.
Unknowns on day one:
Which sections mattered most to regulators versus everyday readers?
How do you create “interaction” when every page is frozen ink?
How far can we push brand colours without compromising WCAG contrast?
Gray areas
60 % of draft copy was dense legal text
Static PDF still had to be screen-reader friendly
From unknown to firm decisions
What I did with it
Broke content into a headline + sidebar summary + deep-dive body
Tagged all headings, table cells, and alt-text in Figma → PDF/UA export; tested with NVDA until navigation was smooth.
Final file hit 18 MB after adding maps & charts
Re-downloaded visuals as clean SVG and compressed photos, goal: ≤ 5 MB.
Bumps along the way
Legal first rejected the “plain-language” content; iterated wording until accuracy and agreement was reached
The first export lost the tag order; we switched to the Axes4 Acrobat plug-in and manually fixed the parent-child tree.
Embedded fonts failed in older Acrobat versions used by regulators; we converted text to outlines for those pages and kept file size low.
Due to NDA, I am not allowed to share content details at this moment.
Collaboration moves that kept us on track
Legal-design reviews every Friday: turned potential blockers into small copy tasks.
Brand design elements built directly in Figma, then handed over for slide decks - zero translation loss.
Impact
What shipped & why it mattered
Clear narrative flow: intro → methodology → metrics → glossary; regulators find data fast, public readers skim with ease.
WCAG-AA proof: 95 % screen-reader compatibility confirmed in internal audit.
Brand alignment: typography and colour synced to Booking design system, reinforcing trust.
PDF ≤ 5 MB: loads quickly on poor connections and prints well.
Reflection
Designing a static PDF felt like ignoring UX tools, until I saw “interaction” as easy scanning.
Three lessons stood out:
Translate first, style later: Simple sidebars helped understanding more than colors or icons.
Accessibility saves time: Fixing contrast problems early avoided later changes.
Regular legal-design meetings cut approval time from weeks to days.
If I did it again, I’d test page layouts with real legal text from the start; fake text doesn’t show spacing issues.
Nonetheless, turning complex legal language into a clear, on-brand report and reducing audit time by 15% proved even a simple PDF can add real business value.