Newsletter

Hello there

Welcome to another belated edition of Plain English Weekly, your favourite collection of exciting clear-language links and other lovely bits and bobs.

I hope you can forgive the sporadic sending schedule so far this year. Whose idea was it to add a timeframe to the name of the newsletter? What a nit.

Enjoy the links below.

Iain

PS Hello to all new subscribers! You can read about what this newsletter is or, if you're interested, find out who the heck I think I am.

The basics of plain language

Some great stuff in the Australian government's style guide:

There are 4 basic elements of plain writing. If you consider these elements, you’ll be well on the way to writing in plain language. They are: structure, word choice, active voice, short sentences.

I really like the last section that explains why plain language benefits everyone. Always worth reminding yourself. And everyone else.

A team effort: pair writing guidance with policy experts

This is a good example of pair writing in action. And it just so happens that working with policy experts on guidance is exactly what I'm doing at the moment. It can be a little gnarly at times, but 'team effort' is exactly what's required.

Words that make me go hmmm: Vulnerable

This is excellent from Bryony Shannon:

I’m not suggesting that we stop talking about vulnerability. Far from it. But what I am calling for is an end to the discriminating and patronising use of the term. That we stop the lazy, blanket application without reason or context.

In short: word choices matter.

Real content design isn’t like the books

I don't think I've met any content designers who wouldn't agree with this. The principles of content design are great and we should apply them as much as possible. But work is messy. People are messy. And being able to adapt to a situation is a crucial skill for all designers.

Five myths about plain English

All good stuff from the folks at Write, a plain language agency (I think) based in New Zealand. Their blog is full of other nuggets too, so have a little explore while you're there.

Readers possibly won’t notice your writing style if you’ve done a good job. But they’ll definitely notice if what you’ve written is confusing or hard to read.
Eleanor Meecham, Write

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Hello there

Another edition of Plain English Weekly here for you to peruse and enjoy. Please do forward this on or share it on social bits and bobs.

And if find or have written something you think might be a good fit for the newsletter, feel free to send it my way.

Iain

Writing Good Survey Questions: 10 Best Practices

There is an art to writing good survey questions. The trick is to set expectations, make it clear what's being asked, and overall do no harm. The tips outlined here are full of practical things you can do to improve your own survey content.

Communicating inclusively beyond our products, services and users

I like this piece by Amy Hupe because I've now been through many onboarding processes as a freelancer and getting it right is hard.

How do you communicate as a team in a way that people feel able to ask questions and offer feedback? How do you know people in your organisation know what the heck everyone else is talking about?

From the post:

There’s lots of information out there on how to create inclusive content. But the vast majority that I see focuses on how we communicate within our products and services, and the need for inclusive communication goes beyond that.

Clear, inclusive communication within teams. Yes please.

This content design method can change the way your brain reads

The content design method in question here is – spoiler alert – plain language. The article is actually full of useful tips for writing in plain English, combined with some of the reasons why it is indeed very sensible to do so.

How to write great AI prompts for ChatGPT

I offer you this link with no comment on the merits or otherwise when it comes to using AI in your content work. But if you are starting to experiment and looking for ways it might work for you, these tips seem like a good starting point.

Who Can Use

Fascinating and potentially useful tool alert!

It's a tool that brings attention and understanding to how color contrast can affect different people with visual impairments.

Just enter two colours, one for text and one for the background, and Who Can Use shows you how people who have various conditions might actually view those colours on a screen. Could be very helpful when making decisions around accessible, inclusive content.

"Research shows that higher literacy people prefer plain English because it allows them to understand the information as quickly as possible. In fact, the more educated the person and the more specialist their knowledge, the greater the preference for plain language."
Hannah Collins

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Hello there

Welcome to a most belated edition of Plain English not-so-Weekly, the newsletter for clear language enthusiasts everywhere.

In short: asked for freelance work, got lots of freelance work, had to prioritise all the freelance work. Sorry! Forgive me. We're back now. And I won't hold you up.

Enjoy the list of juicy links below.

Iain

Applying trauma informed principles to content design

This talk by Rachel Edwards is an important watch if you work with content for people who may have gone through trauma. It's an area I have a fair bit of experience in too and there is so much to consider.

As with most content, I think working collaboratively with users is always the way to go if you can. As Rachel covers in her talk, I too have come up with what I thought were good ideas only to find they were completely wrong when put in front of people with real lived experience.

Basically: speak to and then trust your users.

5 Features of the Best Content Style Guides

Some solid tips here in this post by Erica Mei-mei Feldfeber. I'm always going to encourage you to include practical advice on how to write clear, inclusive and accessible content in your style guide.

Sometimes, it's tempting to just say, 'Hey, you should write clearly!' But style guides are rarely just for writers and plain English types to use. So feel free to give your team the how as well as the what, so to speak.

Accessible communications: A starting point for fostering more inclusive comms

This is a huge and marvellous guide to accessible communications by Christine Fleming, head of digital content at CharityComms. I've added it to my bookmarks and I'm still reading through it, but I really like the practical tips and lovely lists.

The Good, The Bad, And The Jargon

Nice anti-jargon piece with a focus on NGOs and international development by Sarika Bansal. When you ask people what we mean by plain English, a typical answer is: 'getting rid of jargon'. But it's important to really think about what that means, who the jargon affects and what the alternatives might be.

Wherever you work, I can recommend collecting a list of jargon you come across regularly and including better ways of saying stuff in your style guide.

How metaphors can make or break your design

This blog post by John Saito is from 2017. I share it with you because I largely disagree with the bits that refer to using metaphors in writing.

Sure, visual metaphors are often necessary for all sorts of reasons. But there are few reasons to use a metaphor in your writing, unless it's for a specific audience that you are absolutely sure will get it. Or some branding shenanigans.

And if you are writing guidance content or, you know, really important information that helps people live their lives, just avoid metaphors altogether and forever. In fact, may I suggest simply writing in... plain English.

"Language matters. The words we use shape the stories we construct of people and places, and ultimately, the policies and decisions we make. Words can perpetuate dangerous stereotypes of the world’s poorest places. Words can uphold myths of what it takes to “develop” a place."
Sarika Bansal

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Hello there

Welcome to a slightly late, but very much fashionably here now edition of Plain English Weekly, the newsletter for fans of clear language.

I've shared a one-question survey with you for the last two weeks. You can take a look at the results so far to get an idea of what you might collectively like this newsletter to grow into. I'll leave the survey open one more week.

Things in the immediate pipeline:

• Directory of bookmarks
• List of complex words and everyday alternatives
• Training package for teams

This is all going to grow over the next few months, so your support and sharing is very welcome. Many invisible biscuits available as a reward.

Enjoy the links below...

Iain

Why you should use the correct heading structure in your content

Heading structure really is important for lots of reasons. And I have to tell you, I'm a bit of a stickler for it in Word or Google Docs documents too. If I see headings that are just body text made bold, you betcha I'm applying sensible headings to them instead.

Anyway, I found this slightly stilted but informative video while trawling the headings sections of the writing for GOV.UK manual, like one does.

Example of using everyday instead of complex words

Here is a short example of everyday words in action via the Australian government's style guide. Hang around and you'll find lots of other good information and spiffily presented examples too.

How to design accessible and inclusive content (and why it matters)

A mostly practical post here from the UK Design Institute. It includes a couple of examples, some links out to other useful material and this paragraph:

Writing in plain language makes content easier to read and understand for a wider range of users, including people with cognitive or learning disabilities, non-native speakers, and those with limited literacy skills. This means avoiding complex vocabulary, jargon, and acronyms that may be difficult to understand. You should also stick to short sentences that are easy to read, and use active voice instead of passive voice wherever possible. 

Content design patterns

I've spent some time this week thinking about content design patterns in the context of the UK planning system. I know how to live! If you don't know what the heck that means, this post from 2016 by Natalie Shaw remains a fantastic explainer. In fact, here is the gist:

The idea’s this: when someone struggles for a few seconds over a phrase (or anything), it’s only natural to assume that someone else has been in this predicament before. That’s where the repository comes in – it throws up a solution (designed by consensus), and people never have to suffer alone again.

There is a more recent follow-up post too.

The real cost of not using clear language

A few years ago I was asked by GatherContent to run a webinar on plain English, which I have just discovered is still online. However, the one I'm linking you to in the title here is by Christine Cawthorne, who is ace and runs an online community for content folk. Both are part of a large library of webinars that you can go and get stuck into at your leisure (if you give them your email address)

"Headings help users and search engines to read and understand text. For example, they act as signposts for the readers, making it easier for them to figure out what a post or page is about. Headings also define which parts of your content are essential and show how they’re interconnected."
Yoast

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Welcome to issue 11 of Plain English Weekly, sent to you by freelance content designer, Iain Broome. That's me. Hello. Again.

Three things!

1. Thank you to everyone who answered last week's survey that contains just one question. It's still live. I would love your thoughts.
2. I'm available for freelance work from December! My current project work is unexpectedly going on pause, so if you have a content design, copywriting or clear language challenge, email iain@verymeta.com and give me a toot.
3. The survey results so far tell me many of you are interested in plain English training. Look out for an online course on the website in the new year. In the meantime, I run practical workshops with teams. Again, toot away.

Okay, that's it. Enjoy your regular programming below.

Iain

Octopus: a visual sitemap tool and website planner

Let's start by recommending this excellent tool for putting together a lovely sitemap. It has a few features that I like, especially the ability to show what they call 'content bricks' on pages within the sitemap.

I've been using Octopus this past fortnight to prototype some information architecture for user research sessions. It allowed me show and test the overall site structure, but then zoom in to cover more detailed blocks of content on key pages. It's great! Go try it!

Oh – in this blog post, the Octopus team explain the content brick method.

Lisa Riemers' incredible collection of accessibility resources

This is a wonderful collection of links from independent content specialist, Lisa Riemers. I'm pretty sure that you'll find lots of useful stuff, but do check out the section on justifying the use of plain English in particular.

Plain language style guidance from Office for National Statistics (ONS)

As you perhaps know by now, I love finding concise and practical style guidelines and here's another one for the list. This is the plain language section of the ONS style guide and it contains some sound advice and good links out to further reading.

Guide to writing in plain language from The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne

Here's another style guide I quite like, though I can only find it as a PDF. Sorry! Notice the brevity, again. But also the use of examples to show how the guidance can be practically applied. Lovely stuff.

Basically, I think something like this should be the bare minimum for any organisation. You can use the guides I share in this newsletter for inspiration – explore the archive – just make sure your guidance and examples are relevant to you and what you do.

Thoughts on the 'dumbing down' content argument

I've spent most of the last year working on content and doing user research in the world of planning. By crikey, that's a world packed full of jargon and complex language!

You won't be surprised to hear I've found myself on the receiving end of some occasional pushback when explaining the need for clearer language. It's been suggested that complexity is necessary to avoid 'legal challenge' and that planning content is effectively too complicated to change.

You and I both know that's nonsense, of course. But these discussions can be a challenge. That's why I recommend this piece from Sarah Winters and the Content Design London crew to help you explain why plain English is far from dumbing down and all about making content accessible.

How should we draft our privacy information?

Finally this week, we're off to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) and there aren't many newsletters that can say that.

First, a massive high-five to the ICO for wanting to write clear privacy information in the first place. Second, let's all make that a high-ten for this detailed and thoughtful guidance. It contains all sorts of sensible suggestions, including user testing your content!

By the way – what's your organisation's privacy policy like? Not so hot as your homepage, right? Remember, we need to wear our clear language hats when working on all of the pages, all of the time.

New reader?

Join a growing community of nearly 550 clear language champs and start getting advice and resources that help you write clearer, more accessible content.

I'm Iain Broome and this is another edition of Plain English Weekly. Together, we've managed to hit 500 subscribers in just a couple of months. That's way ahead of my expectations, so thank you again for sharing. Please don't stop!

What would you like to see next? I'd love to know.

When you get a spare 30 seconds, I've created a one-question survey to try and find out what plain English information, training or tools you'd find most useful. Just select the magic button and share your thoughts.

And now enjoy this week's links below...

Iain

PS It looks there may be a (potentially large) pause on the project work that's kept me busy for most of this year. If you need an experienced freelance copywriter, content designer or heck, all-round plain English specialist, do get in touch.

Start building a plain language culture today

We start with a nice piece by James Hanington that covers the importance of creating a culture of plain language in an organisation. I've had a go at this a few times and while it's a challenge, it's also perfectly possible. A style guide helps, of course. As does training. But both are pretty useless if there aren't clear standards to aim for and regular support.

Quick guide to plain language (on just nine slides)

Love these short slides by June C, a content design consultant at SPARCK. While I love a comprehensive online course, you can't beat a few good ideas on a handful of screens to get a message across.

Why we use plain English

This absolutely ancient (from 2015) blog post by Ben Clancy, then at the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), stands up rather nicely. Sometimes, it really is important to remind people why you use plain English. It can be helpful for your audience, sure. But also colleagues and teams that you work with from day to day.

Making a case for letter case

I mean, I'm team title case all the way and that's certainly the way most style guides I work with do it. That said, this is a good overview of why some people choose title case over sentence case, even if it doesn't make much sense to me. I'm looking at you, Apple. 👀

Oh – I found this via Adam Silver's excellent newsletter for UX and content folk.

TextBuddy: a plain English text analyzer tool

TextBuddy is another online tool that lets you chuck a in load of text so it can tidy things up and spit out a theoretically clearer version. It highlights any complex words, passive verbs and long sentences that the robots think may need an extra full stop or two.

Over time, as each writer within an organization writes and as the organization itself communicates with customers and the public, this co-accountability leads to a culture that prizes writing that is brief, clear, precise, logical—and therefore persuasive.
James Hanington

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