In class the other day we had a really interesting speaker come to speak to us! Her name is Deanna and she is the co-owner of Zuula consulting! Her passion is plain language and that's what she helps business to accomplish. She gave a great definition of what plain language is and she said it's...
This is a great definition because plain language is not about dumbing down the information but just making it as easy to understand as possible. One of her big things is taking those terms and conditions things that nobody ever reads and making those easier to understand/read so people will read them. Deanna made a good point and that's we have a right to know what we are signing up for and so that information should be easily accessible and not hidden behind walls of text.
Deanna also said that plain language is all about
The right Message
The right Audience
The right Channel
By combing these things you can achieve plain language. If you have the right message but the wrong audience then you haven't achieved plain language. That's why you need all 3 to achieve plain language.
Another great thing she said was
Which is the theme of plain language. Plain language is all about the user and so you want to talk to the user the same way they would talk to themselves. That way they (the user) has full understanding of what's going on.
This quote is also great because it ties into another topic Deanna talked about that I really liked. She talked about how in college all we do is write long papers full of all these extra words just to make a simple point.
We use big words and put in all this fluff just to reach a word count. We don't get to learn or practice in college the skill of getting to the point. I'm sure my blogs come across as super wordy because I don't know how to just make my point in as few words as possible. Writing a lot to back up your argument has its place but so just simplistic writing.
Literally in my job right now my biggest thing is getting away from long form writing. I have to forget all the things I've learned about writing just so I can get to the point of things. My job requires me to be as short and sweet and to the point as possible, but like I said I don't know how to do that.
I'm glad Deanna came to our class because I had no idea this was a thing but I'm really glad it is!