Friday, 20 October 2017

"Thank you for making this information harder to read" From 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..... 


Cathy Basterfield
Access Easy English
0466 579 855 
Facebook:    /accesseasyenglish

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