What we learnt from the Plain English Campaign.

Source: Whoosh — Illustration Kit

No one should have to fight to understand what you are saying.

We want to remove the barriers that stop people from applying to university. In the process of developing our new brand and website, we realised our content could be a barrier. We weren’t making things as clear as we could. 😱

To improve, we invited the Plain English Campaign to campus. The Plain English Campaign fight for the use of plain English in public communications. They believe everyone should have access to clear and concise information.

We learnt about the group’s origins and how important accessible language is. Language evokes feeling. It can include the reader or it can exclude them. If our audience cannot understand our content, they might feel like they are not good enough or that university is not for them.

The Plain English Campaign training showed us how our writing wasn’t meeting the needs of our users. The biggest revelation was that we could (and should) substantially reduce everything we write.

We made content that could have been a sentence into a paragraph. We used unnecessary words. There were times where we used “and also” when we could just use “and”. We would use “prospective student” instead of “you”.

Going back to basics reminded us to question everything we write. No one has time to fight through content to find the information they need. We should leave no sentence unturned. Every word matters. 🙌

For all new content, focus on the user.

• You are responsible for whether your work includes your audience or excludes them.
• Content should be easy to understand.
• Use common words.
• Remove jargon or explain it. People might not understand ‘Clearing’, ‘Adjustment’, or ‘Conditional offer’ for example.
• Avoid abbreviations unless they are well known.
• Be direct.
• Include just one idea per sentence.
• Use the active voice.
• Break up chunks of content with bullet points.
• Avoid printing in block caps.
• Avoid underlining text.

Source: Whoosh — Illustration Kit

Always ask yourself: Is this how I would explain my topic to someone in person?

If not, your content is probably too complex.

It is easy to get overly familiar with the concepts and terminology in your area of expertise. You can make assumptions about your reader’s knowledge and this results in bad content. If you are worried about clarity, ask someone outside of your specialism if they can understand what you have written.

The Plain English Campaign training reminded us that it is important to embrace feedback.

Always keep learning. 🤓

Want to read more?

• Here are some great free guides from Plain English Campaign
• Some cool data on sentence length and readability.