Make it clear, writing for accessibility

why plain language should be taught in school

In The Pudding latest newsletter, the title of their visual essay “what makes writing more understandable” caught my eyes. It’s not the typical topic they’ve worked on in the past but that’s not the reason I was curious to find out more.

For someone who loves reading and writing, I’ve always been puzzled by how words (and more precisely long pages of reading) can dispel people. I remember a CEO proudly saying that he doesn’t read anything longer than 3 lines being an email or a report. Why text make so many people incomfortable ? This is probably because it’s not accessible.

What is plain language ?

I’ve had to think hard about how to entice my clients to read my texts because for years my job was to write (writing for websites or to convey the results of market reasearch). This is when I found out about how to improve readability using plain language.

Plain language (also called plain writing or plain English) is communication your audience can understand the first time they read or hear it.

The Plain Writing Act of 2010 defines plain language as:

Writing that is clear, concise, well-organized, and follows other best practices appropriate to the subject or field and intended audience. Source

Reading the visual essay by The Pudding team made me realize that we have not yet made any progress. Complex sentences, jargons and difficult words still fill most of any written document, even if it’s supposed to be accessible such as healthcare or education.

An extract from the Pudding article gives a good overview of what plain language brings.

Initial text

Plain language is useful for everyone, but especially for those who are often denied the opportunity to engage with and comment on public writing. This includes the 20% of the population with learning disabilities, a number of the more than 7 million people in the US with intellectual disabilities (ID), readers for whom English is not a first language and people with limited access to education, among others.

Replaced by

Plain language is helpful for everyone. But it is really good for people who may find other kinds of writing hard to read. That includes:

• People with learning disabilities.

• People with intellectual disabilities (ID).

• People who are learning to speak English.

• People who did not go to school or went to school less than they wanted to.

A TEDx Talk I watched many years ago on plain language stayed with me. With the example of her parents needing to subscribe to a new insurance, Deborah Bossley demonstrates how complex language make it impossible to take informed decisions.

“Tired of trying to read information that is confusing, complex, and irritating?

I believe that as citizens we have the right to receive information that is clear, concise, and credible. This talk with teach you what you can do to insist on clarity. As an advocate for plain language, I believe that people have the right to understand information that affects their lives, and they should “demand to understand.”

I’m always astonished that people shrug when I ask: “Why would you agree to or sign something you don’t understand?” Deborah Bosley

Writing for highly educated reader misses the point

Incidentally, last week, a friend shared Coris Bank Senegal general sales conditions (screenshot below), where you can calculage the TEG (providing you know what is TEG and you’re familiar with financial equation). I thought it was a very good example of what is to communicate information so that the reader won’t understand (unless the reader has a master in finance).

Making the efforts of writing in plain language is worth and needed

Writing in plain language may seem easy but it’s not for most of us. It’s not intuitive because school has taught us the use of complex sentences. I’m not saying this is bad. It’s vital to know how to express complexity and communicate subtility.

The problem is that we haven’t learned how to express complex ideas simply so that everyone can understand. Too often we assume that the reader has the same level of understanding than we have. The most frequent outcome ? People don’t read the content or don’t understand what they read. Making sure people read what they are exposed to is particularly important now that misinformation is so frequent.

We need strong institutions and informed citizens. This is only possible if information produced is communicated in an understandable way (written and orally). It’s the responsability of public institutions and private organisations. It’s a matter of democracy not only accessibility.

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Formamind is a regular newsletter published twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays. It focuses on self development, innovation, creativity, team collaboration, leadership and my personal journey towards understanding how our brain works.

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