Access Easy English: October 2017

Friday, 20 October 2017

Papers from PLAIN International 2017

Day 2 Key notes included a presentation from the newly created German Easy to Read Concept. "Leichte Sprache". They have published a large text on 'how to write in German Easy to Read'.

A few papers discussed working with people with lower literacy skills.

Belgium - Van Der Waarde - Plain Language in health: Can understandable information improve the use of medicines by patients? This was developed from the graphic designer perspective, with lots of insights into how to get images to work for the content.

Germany - Weigard/Zschorlicj - Head lice: Nothing to be ashamed of. Evidence based health information for hard to reach target groups. Important message: websites do not work for this target group!!!

Ireland - Lane/Droog - Men's Cancer Prevention and Health Literacy. Discussed how information needs to be presented differently for men - use of easy to read language; humour, positive messages and infographics. Interestingly they have their images on the Right side of pages. Love to chat more....

Australia - Basterfield – Workshop – Improve Communication- Improve Customer Relationships. For those that came a great discussion on how the strategies for interactive communication are as relevant and as important as our written messages. Working with participants who have English as a 2^nd. 3^rd or 4^th language was great fun, as we tried to identify simple everyday words for complex ones!.

Australia – Basterfield – Who is my Customer. A thought provoking paper, which people afterwards commented they had no idea or hadn’t realised the vulnerable people I write Easy English for, is (i) out there and (ii) as prevalent as it is.

A couple of papers I missed , but want to catch up with...

Sweden - Jaensson Introducing a new grant to new target groups. Unfortunately I didn’t get to this paper as I was chairing another session. Looking forward to the PPT and a follow up with Annasara;

Germany – Frohlich – Capito – Easy to read . Practical experiences.

Based on digital experiences. Development of the ‘çapito’ method and quality standards.

Cathy Basterfield

Access Easy English

www.accesseasyenglish.com.au

cathy@accesseasyenglish.com.au

0466 579 855

Facebook: /accesseasyenglish

Twitter: @accesseasyengl @accessseasyengli

"Thank you for making this information harder to read" From PLAIN International 2017

PLAIN International 2017.

Held in Graz, Austria at the largest university in their city.

Lots of people from many different countries attended. There a few more papers and discussion about meeting the needs of people who do have more limited literacy, which was great to see. PPT's from the conference will be available soon. I will put the link here when they are available.

Highlights - there were many.

In the Opening Address Neil James, the outgoing President welcomed everyone with the 4 'S' of Plain Language.

- Service

- Satisfaction

- Safety

- Savings.

Service

covered things such as

- information from a company is easier to understand;

- it takes less time to write and act on the information;

- saves money;

- better relationships with customers.

Satisfaction

- A great slide with comments about "when was the last time a customer said......."

'thank you for making this information more complicated than it needed to be';

'but this was too easy to understand';

'I feel smarter when you make it harder to read';

I would like to spend more time doing this (read document)!'

Safety

Complex information is not clear. It is more open to misinterpretation. Think about an insurance statement....

Savings

More recent data has shown when using Plain Language:-

25%-40% reduction in a documents length;

50% reduction in writing time

40%-60% reduction in reviewing time;

50% reduction in number of drafts;

50% increase in reader satisfaction.

Now put these in the context of Easy English.....