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Start a plain language initiative in your organization:
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Step 4Get the right mix of people involved You won’t be writing clear documents by yourself. You will need to work with a team that includes:
An ideal first meeting would include all of the above around the table. After that, some of your team members – such as the sponsoring executive, the attorney, IT person and designer -- can be consulted as necessary. Example:
I recently completed a project to rewrite all of a large state agency’s collections letters and legal notices. The 12-month project revised and streamlined a set of 35 documents, involved a core team of six, and involved usability testing with professionally recruited customers. Each year, many thousands of these documents are sent to business owners who are late with payments. The program’s goal is to reduce the amount of time highly trained revenue agents spend clearing up confusion caused by form letters. It hopes to increase annual collections by $500,000 to $1 million; a drop in phone calls is expected to give the agents more productive time to collect overdue amounts. Example of plain language team: Collections Letter Project
Note: You also may want to consider involving a few people you trust from outside of your organization who would be affected by your project. For example, if you are changing a form that an accountant usually fills out for your customers, consider inviting an accountant you know, perhaps a civic-minded one who has helped on advisory boards before. That person would have in-depth knowledge of how the form works in the real world. Of course, you’d need to get advice from your executive management before taking this step. |
Articles and other resources for plain language
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