The Simplified blog

• More guidelines on how to tell whether a document is in plain language. Simplified has been performing plain-language audits in anticipation of these guidelines for quite some time.
• More templates such as the policy summaries that Zimele has launched in the long-term insurance industry. Although a step in the right direction, these documents need improvements if they are to carry out the intentions of plain language.
• More user testing. A pitfall of many plain-language documents is that they have not been tested with the people who use them. In South Africa, we cannot blindly follow international norms, but must test our documents and develop local knowledge about how to apply plain language.
• More interest in which language to use for which types of documents. We cannot assume that plain English or plain Afrikaans is plain language.

• 35% said it was evolving customer needs and product features
• 19% said it was distribution channel needs
• 18% said it was competition from other financial products
• 17% said it was impact of regulators
• 11% cited ‘other factors’.

• the context, comprehensiveness and consistency of the notice, document or visual representation
• the organisation, form and style of the notice, document or visual representation
• the vocabulary, usage and sentence structure of the notice, document or visual representation
• the use of any illustrations, examples, headings, or other aids to reading and understanding.

• Is its definition of plain language sufficiently accurate or precise?
• Does it refer enough to the average reading level of Americans?
• Is possible to legislate around plain language in an environment with such a strong tradition of small print and legalese?
• Is it a problem that there do not seem to be repercussions for those who do not comply?

Click here for some amazing ways to visualise information from Joy Division tracks to diseases... A research project at Columbia University has mapped the overlap between 161 different diseases by studying epidemiological data from 1.5 million patients. The results show how design can become analysis. Read about the project in this article in Technology Review, July 2007.

Thanks to Garth for sending me the link to this sum-up article in Smashing Magazine, August 2007.

Read the article by clicking here.

Source: 'Help us understand,' youngsters tell banks,by Rosemary Gallagher,

The Scotsman, 15 September 2007

    Hi all

The Life Offices' Assocation (LOA) has published a 'jargon buster' of terms used in insurance as well as medical terms.

The good? The jargon buster is in a wiki format, and the LOA invites suggestions and edits. According to an article in ITInews, a committee will evaluate all feedback given on the site.

This is an important step towards building consistency in the industry - although some of the definitions throw up many issues and I'm sure will generate lots of healthy debate.

Frances

Hi Simplifiers

Cheers for now,

Frances

Frances
    

• the context, comprehensiveness and consistency of the document
• the organisation, form and style of the document
• the vocabulary, usage and sentence structure of the text
• the use of any illustrations, examples, headings, or other aids to reading and understanding.'

• Textual-based criteria are no longer enough; assessments of plain language must incorporate user testing.
• Plain language looks not only at style, but also content ('comprehensiveness'). As a colleague of mine once said, ‘nonsense in plain language is still nonsense’.
• Research must be a backbone to any plain-language programme.

You can read more about the training course here, or contact us for a course outline. 


        

    Hi

I'm taking a short break from contract rewriting to complain about 'subject to', and wonder why more people don't.

THe phrase is unclear. Look here:

’Payment can only be made subject to Company X’s practice at the time’.

So 'subject to' means 'depending on a condition'. But then read it without a break between 'made' and 'subject' (so subject becomes a noun) and you get a different meaning altogether.

And then it can mean 'liable to' as in the case of 'she is subject to being delayed by linguistic ambiguity'.  And one should not confuse it with 'being subjected to' as in 'the reader is being subjected to too much information'.

But the last straw is further down in the contract I'm working on where I find:

’If the contract is subject to a cession, then the benefit will be paid to the owner’...

Which seems to use a different slant?

Let's stop with 'subject to'. No-one (normal) uses the term anyways,

Frances

Welcome to 2007!

Simplified features in this month's Entrepreneur magazine. You can see the online version here. 

    Chrissie's blog gives insight into the amazing Chrissie Mayer, who founded the Plain English Campaign in the UK in 1979.

Everyman's favourite linguist, David Crystal, tells us to say no to the kind of zero tolerance advocated (dictated) by books such as Lynne Truss's bestseller 'Eats, Shoots and Leaves'.

Hi all

Business writing gets existential sometimes. One of my pet peeves is when documents refer to the reader as 'I' and then as 'you', and just three lines later the people who wrote the article are 'we', general people out there are 'you', and  who knows who 'one' is.

Thankfully, there is a Simpsons episode which illustrates the point.

Bart is talking to a robot:

Robot: (electronic intonation) Who is the only one who can stop forest fires?

Bart: (examines response panel, which has two buttons, marked "you" and "me", and presses "you")

Robot: (electronic intonation) "You pressed YOU, meaning me. This is incorrect. You should have pressed ME, meaning you."

There are lots of other fabulous linguistic jokes at this linguistic humor page found through languagelog.

    We all know what plain language is... short sentences, the active voice, bullet points, everyday words, no jargon... the same principles are quoted by plain language practitioners around the world. So that's all there is to it, right?

Wrong. The truth is that the principles are not enough. To write effectively for a target audience, guess what? You need to have intimate knowledge of that target audience.

I have written business communications for various companies around the world, including in the UK, US, around Europe and the Middle East. Every country has its own 'take' on how to communicate. The principles apply, but there are subtle differences.

If I were writing for a SA audience, I would write differently to if I were writing for a UK audience. Some examples?

- In SA, most readers are probably L2 English speakers; this changes the way one has to write for them. For example, in the UK, I may feel comfortable using a complex verb tense whereas for South Africans, one would rather go with a slightly more difficult word than risk ambiguity in the tense.

- I would pay more attention to brevity for SA readers.

- I may use a more formal tone of voice for SA readers.

These are the types of subtleties that South African practioners need to explore in more detail. While we can draw on international principles and best practice, let's not forget that, plainly put, Seffrikan is... well, Seffrikan.

We must learn from international experts, but we must not forget that local expertise is essential.

Keep well all

Frances

Most people do not read financial documents. This article in the Financial Times (FT.com, 9 September 2005) says a survey showed that people are far more likely to read the calorie counts on food packaging, or even their horoscopes, than financial statements.

There are two reasons for this:

1. If you understand very little about a topic, you can't see its importance to you.

2. If a document is text dense and difficult, reading it is too much bother.

Traditionally, plain language addressed the second point only. But we believe that, especially in South Africa, we also need to take a careful look at the first one. In other words, financial institutions should make it their business not only to sell and administer products, but also to educate consumers about them.

Fortunately, many companies are taking this leap - as they realise the strongest way to build loyalty and trust is to empower consumers to make informed decisions.

    Hi all

Not enough worthwhile research is done into plain language. All too often research companies test what readers think they understand rather than what they really understand.

Here's a welcome exception - it's a study on court forms in the US (Maria Mindlin, 2005). It compared understanding of current forms to ones rewritten in plain language. One of the questions was 'what is the purpose of this form?' - an excellent catch-all question for this kind of study. Readers of the plain-language form answered correctly 70% of the time compared to 23% for the current form.

The findings also showed some incidental benefits - such as a reduction in the cost of translation.

You can find the study, and an example of the plain-language forms from a link off the blog, Shlep - The Self-Help Law ExPress. Notice how the plain-language form uses diagrams and white space to make an intimidating topic seem more friendly.

Frances

  Hi Simplifiers

A while ago, I wrote a  case study where I looked at the Simplicity campaign at Philips. An article on FastCompany points out that although Philips' big design idea really is a Big Design Idea, it's not the yellow-brick road. Or if it is, it's a long road.

Thanks to Michele for sending me the link.

In other news, Simplified featured in a short interview on SAFM yesterday. Hopefully I'll be able to post some highlights here in a couple of days.

Have a good week all,

Frances

Hi all

Does everyone out there know about World Usability Day on 14 November? That's when the winners of a nation-wide competition will be announced. If you or your company have something that you think makes life easier for the people who use it, why not enter? Details are here.

Competition categories are:

1. Educational Institutions
2. Entertainment Sector
3. Financial Sector
4. Tourism Sector
5. Website/Intranet Entry

Cheers,

Frances

    Hi all

I came across the concept of communication ecology last week. It's an interesting framework for looking at the relationship between the environment and communication. 

These types of frameworks are often used by academics, but not in the business world. Yet perhaps they should be as, if correctly applied, they can be very useful indeed.

In a call for papers from the Electronic Journal of Communication (October 2006), the editors talk about three layers for communicative ecology:

1. A technological layer (for example, communication channels, devices, documents types)
2. A social layer (for example, the type of relationships - friendships, professional, legal...)
3. A discursive layer (the content that informs the message, for example, the fact that the people involved have an understanding of financial services, or the fact that they distrust large corporates, or whatever the ideas are that inform their readings).  

In these bullet points, the layers are mentioned by the journal editors, but I came up with the examples. I hope they reflect what the authors meant. I just did not want to bog down this blog with too much academic language...

Keep well everyone,

Frances

Hi all Simplifiers

So South Africa now has the legislative and regulatory support for plain language in financial services. Then why are most documents still not in plain language?

There are a couple of reasons - but an important one is that there are no agreed-on standards on what plain language actually is. If a document uses short sentences and the active voice, but is poorly structured and designed, is it still plain language?

If a document is clearly written, but leaves out critical information, or gives misleading information, is it still plain language?

At Simplified, we've tried to put together a set of objective plain language criteria that can be used to assess a document to see if it complies with plain language.

If anyone would like a summary of these, please contact us through the site. We have sent out the summary to a couple of industry practitioners already: we'd appreciate any feedback you have - on the criteria or on the concept.

Keep well everyone,

Frances

    Hi all

We've posted some examples of plain English rewrites on our site.  Have a read through them and if you have any comments, here's the place to put them.

You'll notice that all the rewrites we have used are shorter than the original versions. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Sometimes when one rewrites something in plain language, it becomes longer. There are three main reasons for this:

1. Jargon needs to be explained. It's shorter to say something like 'RIY is greater for our product than for others in the market' than to explain what RIY actually is. (RIY stands for Return in Yield. It is the figure that is used to compare the costs of different investment products.)

2. We use more white space and a larger font size.

3. We give information that was missing before.

That's all for now. Enjoy the before-and-afters,

Frances

Hi again

After my last rather serious post, I cannot resist posting this brilliant piece of dialogue from Jack Sparrow and co. (Pirates of the Caribbean):

Elizabeth: Captain Barbossa , I am here to negotiate the cessation of hostilities against Port Royal .

Barbossa: There are a lot of long words in there, Miss; we're naught but humble pirates. What is it that you want?

Elizabeth: I want you to leave and never come back.

Barbossa: I'm disinclined to acquiesce to your request. Means "no".

Keep well,

Frances

Hi to all

Prof. John Maeda, simplicity fundi from MIT Media Lab, put together a set of laws of simplicity. You can read them here on his blog. Everytime I do so, I get something more out of them.

For example, the second law states:

The positive emotional response derived
from a simplicity experience has less to do
with utility, and more to do with saving time.

Is that true? Or does it depend on what kind of person you are, the subject matter, or what kind of culture you belong to?

The eleventh law is the most interesting: it explains one of the processes of simplification that I have never seen put into words before:

He writes:

It then dawned upon me that the intellectual approach to simplicity is to reduce details, whereas the intuitive approach to simplicity is to add subtlety. The beauty of subtlety is that it is usually weightless, hard-to-detect, and, by most accounts, invisible. In other words, it is the style of something gained from nothing. Thus we arrive at the eleventh law of simplicity:

Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, while adding the meaningful.

This begins to explain why I have always found empathy one of the most important qualities for simplifiers. Simplifying does not (just) happen through logical deduction.

Later,

Frances

We recently found this piece of wording from an insurance policy. The policy is being offered to people through retail stores in rural South Africa. It has to do with insurance for goods bought on hire purchase. Here is the first sentence of the contract: it is 97 words long and is presented in six-point arial.

''In consideration of the payment of the premium and subject to the terms, exceptions, conditions, provisions and limits of Master Policy XXX 12345678, Insurance Company* Financing Ltd (hereinafter referred to as The Insurer”) agrees to indemnify Financier* (Pty) Limited (hereinafter called the Financier) on behalf of the Buyer herinafter called the Insured in respect of loss or damage (as defined) to the goods by repair, replacement or payment at the discretion of the insurer against the insured events as hereinafter provided occurring during the period of insurance but not exceeding the amounts as specified.''

It should be illegal to sell a policy with wording like this... Oh, wait. Actually it is!

Hi Simplifiers

Thanks to Candice for sending me the recent article in BusinessWeek, How Intel Cuts Through the Jargon (18 July, 2006). The article lauds this company for a new campaign to connect with customers by using plain language.

Along with explaining the benefits of plain language and giving some useful tips, it gives a before-and-after example of an explanation for a dual-core computer chip.

My questions to the article’s version are:

1. What’s the difference between a dual-core brain chip and a twin-brain processor? If they are the same thing, why not use the same words?
2. The analogy of two brains makes one think the computer will run twice as fast. Is this true? (That question’s not rhetorical – I have no idea!)
   
   

When your computer’s doing more than one thing at a time, it often runs slowly. A dual chip lets it do more than one thing a lot faster.

Then I’d give an example.

The failing of this rewrite is that it doesn’t ’’really’’ explain what the dual chip (which I unfairly renamed) actually does.

The reasons for this are 1) Does the average non-geek-speaking customer really want - or need - to know?, and 2) Admittedly, even after reading both explanations given in the article, I still don’t understand the concept enough to translate it into plain language.

Frances

While sweating it out muddling through the New York subway system, I got to thinking about underground maps.

These are the undergrounds I've used: Paris, London, New York, Santiago, Munich.

Of these, to me, London's is the clearest and New York's the most confusing. Interesting that London's tube map is not spacially correct - so for years you could be switching lines underground instead of walking five minutes on top. New York's is spacially correct but reasonably baffling.

There is a great discussion on subway maps on Edward Tufte's forum at www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00005W&topic_id=1.

I'm wondering what our Gautrain map will look like. As there will only be one line (I think), and not too many stops, it probably would be best to make it reflect real distances. Although I hope that whoever creates it does quite extensive user testing...

Anyway, last week in NY,  I approached the ticket-sales person for a map (they seem to hide them). He gave me not a map but a brochure which said said something like: ''Now catching the subway in New York is as easy as A, B, C, N, E, Z, 1, 2.... '' I chucked it and stuck to the buses.

Frances

Bravo to Virgin Money (South Africa) for its online credit card application (go to www.virginmoney.co.za and click ‘Apply now’).

The process is well-presented and most of the terms and conditions are in plain language. Another plus factor - they are only one-page long.

Virgin Money makes these two important conditions explicit right from the start – I love the fact that there is no click-through to them and absolutely no small print.

‘I acknowledge that all the information I will provide is correct and if it is not I understand that this will be fraudulent.’

…and…

‘I consent to you checking my credit record with any credit reference agency. I also consent to Virgin Money providing credit reference agencies with regular updates about the conduct of my accounts, including the failure to meet the agreed terms and conditions. I also agree that the credit reference agencies may, in turn, make my record and details available to other credit grantors.’

These may not be perfect, but they are among the best I have seen in South Africa.

There are a couple of sentences that I feel could be improved. For example, the experience starts with ‘Are you accessing a saved application?’ – which, to me, is quite unfriendly. They should rather ask if users are starting a new application or continuing one they have already started. 

And of course, the following 75-word sentence is completely out of place:

‘’These terms and conditions shall be governed and interpreted in accordance with the laws of the Republic of South Africa and application for the product offered on this site or pages will constitute your consent and submission to the jurisdiction of the South African courts regarding all proceedings, transactions, applications or the like instituted by either party against the other, arising from any of the terms and conditions pertaining to this site or the product.’’

Any thoughts on these clauses? Or on online applications in general?

Keep well everyone,

Frances

Hi readers...

One of our colleagues wrote an anthem for all the Simplifiers out there. I thought it was worth sharing, but will keep the author anonymous...  So altogether now to the tune of that Iggy Pop song:

You are the Simplifiers

And you write and you write

You read through business documents

What do you see?

You see such frightful, hollow words

You see no summaries

All of it was made for you to fix

All of it was made for you to fix!

Actually come to think of it, it's a little negative song. Sometimes we Simplifiers do see more than frightful, hollow words. Promise.

Frances

Here are some ground rules for commenting within this blog:

1. Be polite. This means no swearing, no slandering.

2. Make your point succinctly.

3. You are welcome to make your point anonymously. However, we’ll be more likely to answer if you introduce yourself by describing where you are from, the type of work you do, and the industry you work in.

We may decide to edit any comments on this blog. If we do this, there’ll be a <edited> after it. We may also decide to delete any post we think unsuitable. Please look at legal if you are interested in our disclaimers (promise they’re in plain language!)

Thanks for visiting our plain English blog - Candice and I decided to become bloggers so that we can share some of our thoughts, experiences and debates about simplified communications.

We hope that you feel free to add your comments. And if you have any questions about simplifying your documents, this is the place to ask them.

To introduce ourselves: We are both consultants in simplifying communications. Candice is a plain language attorney, and I come from the brand, marketing and technology areas. We work together on helping companies to produce clear communications - together, we founded Simplified.

We hope to share our experiences and ideas with you... but first another post with some groundrules.