A whopping 46% of Australians don’t have the literacy and numeracy skills to successfully function in contemporary Australia.
Can those people successfully interact with your website and your digital products to get the information they need? Can they complete the task they need to do? Are you bleeding customers or clients because of it? Are your users pounding their keyboards in frustration?
The more organisations use plain language to communicate, the more success Australians will have in their everyday lives. And the more we see plain language in our everyday lives, the more everyone will expect it.
I want plain English to be the norm, not an unexpected delight.
What plain language is … and is not
Plain language (or plain English as we used to call it) is content your user understands quickly, easily, and completely.
When we talk to clients, stakeholders and subject matter experts about plain language, we sometimes experience resistance. That’s because some think plain language is ‘dumbing down’ content or writing in a way that condescends to their readers. But that’s not what plain language is.
When you explain that plain language means writing content in a way that helps people understand something the first time they read it, they start to get it.
When you explain that research shows that highly educated people prefer plain language, they start listening.
And once they see their content transformed into plain language, they really get it.
Why plain language is best
Plain language is about helping people do the things they need to do quickly, easily and without confusion.
We work on many government websites and intranets. Their users are not visiting their digital spaces for fun. Users visit to find specific information or do a task. It’s something they HAVE to do, not something they WANT to do. I don’t fill in my Business Activity Statement (BAS) form each quarter for fun or apply for a passport because that’s how I get my kicks. Nope. These are things I HAVE to do.
As well as increasing user success, plain language content may result in fewer enquiries. For a large organisation, plain language can significantly reduce the load on call centres.
Tips for writing in a plain English style
Follow these tips to help you write content that’s easier to understand the first time someone reads it.
Plain language tip #1: Be concise
Use short sentences. Make every character count.
Avoid writing sentences of more than 15 words.
Comprehension is usually 100% for short sentences of up to 8 words.
Comprehension drops to 90% for sentences from 9 to 14 words long.
For sentences longer than 40 words, comprehension drops to 10%. Don’t do that to your users.
Break longer paragraphs up into shorter sentences. It’s OK for a single sentence to be a paragraph. The more clear space you have around your text, the easier it is to read.
To find simpler words, use an online thesaurus like my favourite, WordHippo.
Plain English tip #2: Be clear
Check for ambiguity. Make sure there is no other way to interpret your content.
When we’re too close to the content, we often can’t see how others might misinterpret our message or instruction.The Curse of Knowledge often means we can’t see these ambiguities in our own work.
Ask someone else to read your content to check if your meaning is clear. Even better – user test it with your target audience. Learn where people stumble and fix it.
Plain English tip #3: Use the active voice
Don’t hide behind the passive voice.
Bureaucrats love the passive voice because it somewhat absolves them of responsibility.
For example:
The report was released by the Department of Nuisances.
The Department of Nuisances released the report.
Those two sentences are very different. The second sentence clearly shows who did the action.
The active voice is direct and more concise. Fewer words means a better digital reading experience.
Plain English tip #4: Use lists
Use bullet lists for general points where appropriate. Bullet lists are a great way to break up a long sentence.
Bullet lists aid scanning behaviours and draw attention.
Use numbered lists for content that is part of a process or if the content has a specific order.
Plain English tip #5: Avoid jargon
Your audience may not understand your jargon, so avoid it.
Even if your clients are in the same industry, don’t assume they’ll understand the jargon.
Don’t use buzz words either. It will date your content.
Sometimes we’re so entrenched in our own lexicon that we don’t realise that we’re using jargon. Note the ironic use of lexicon?
Plain English tip #6: Spell out acronyms
Write acronyms in full the first time you use one and then place the acronym in brackets after it. For example, write:
National Bank of Australia (NAB)
After that first time, then you can use NAB throughout your content. But if you write a new page of web content, spell it out again the first time you use it on that page. Don’t assume someone has visited the other page where the acronym is spelt out in full.
If your page is long, it’s OK to repeat spelling the acronym out in full again.
You don’t need to spell out commonly accepted acronyms like ATM or SCUBA.
Plain English tip #7: Use numerals
Use numerals instead of writing out numbers, even for 1 to 9.
Many older print-based style guides will encourage you to spell out ‘one’ through to ‘nine’ and then use numerals from 10 onwards. But this is now old school thinking, especially in the online world.
Numerals are easy to recognise.
It also avoids people confusing the number 2 with the words to or too.
Applying plain language
If you would like to build plain language capability within your organisation, we have just the course for you. Our “Writing for the Web” training course covers all of this and so much more. Get in touch to learn more.
