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An interview with Deborah Bosley Deborah Bosley is owner and principal of The Plain Language Group and professor emeritus of technical communication at UNC Charlotte. For two decades she has helped organizations create written information that exceeds compliance standards and is easy for people to understand and use. A former board member of the Center for Plain Language, Deborah agreed to sit down for an interview about her career and a recent court case.
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The Montréal Clarity Conference was remarkable for its setting, for the varied presentations, and for the particularly strong legal presence. Quite special was the Plenary Session for the Plain Language Federation which was co-founded by the Center for Plain Language, Plain Language Association International, and Clarity-International.
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No one knows this truth better than Sonia Sánchez Moreno, Director of Community Translations for Sylaba Translations and two-time judge for the annual Spanish ClearMark awards. Sonia’s advocacy for plain language in translations is inspiring and her hard work as a judge helps the Center ensure that we have a robust and successful Spanish category. We sat down with Sonia – virtually, since she lives in Melbourne, Australia – to talk about plain language and the special considerations of translations.
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By Tanner Call I’ve recently been the target of a clever direct mail scam. It involves convincing the potential victim that their vehicle’s warranty is about to expire and that they need to renew it soon. The letter includes “official” components such as a barcode, logo, reference number, and even a chart with a summary of terms. The document looked so official and complex that my first reaction was to call the phone number to speak to a real person. I was confused. I couldn’t make sense of the coverage explanation, platinum options, or program terms (which legitimate insurance quotes have). The only reason I realized this was a scam was because of typos and no reference to a specific company or government agency (such as a car dealership or the DMV). The combination of document complexity and confusing content made this scam much more deceptive than other attempts. When industries create a culture of complicated language, it can make already-vulnerable customers more likely to fall for scams that take advantage of unclear content. Criminals fill their scams with such complex jargon (common for insurance companies) that it’s impossible for their victims to understand. Then they call the number and give the scammer their personal information. Companies could provide insurance documents and quotes that are easy to understand. This plain
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We recently sent an email to our members about an effort to develop international standards on plain language. The information below is a summary of that email, including what you can do now to support this effort. As we noted in the email, any efforts towards developing standards will not only have the potential to make our work in plain language easier, but may also provide more opportunities for those of us working in this area. Therefore, we can all benefit from the success of this effort.
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In so many areas of our lives, things are way too complicated. Applying for a job? Awesome, if you have 45 minutes to fill out a form with the exact same information from the resume you already uploaded. Buying a car? It’s a cinch, as long as you’ve got an afternoon to spend reading the fine print. Going to the doctor? It’s easy, once you’ve filled out these ten new patient forms.
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A few weeks ago, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before the Senate. That’s not news. Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) stated the obvious: "Here's what everyone's been trying to tell you today — and I say it gently — your user agreement sucks." Senator Kennedy suggested that Mr. Zuckerberg tell his $1,200/hour lawyer to write the agreement in English, “so the average American user can understand.” Facebook knows how to do this, at least fairly well. So why didn’t they?
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Ensuring that written materials are easy to understand and use often starts with plain language best practices and includes field testing to “test” the content, format, and messages with the intended audience. Developers agree that user-centered design and feedback from intended audiences are critically important to developing clear, understandable, and useable information. However, there are often challenges to soliciting meaningful input from the “right” audience members, specifically, those with low literacy or low health literacy.
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