The clarity triplet – words, structure, and design

The ISO standard defines plain language as:

Communication in which wording, structure, and design are so clear that intended readers can easily

• find what they need,

• understand what they find, and

• use that information.

 For wording, write like you speak.

 For structure, put your bottom line up the front.

 For design, add space and visual variety.

 It's easy to get caught up with words. But all 3 matter. 

Wording: write like you speak

Would you say ‘Your request will be completed by our team this afternoon’? No? Then don’t write it.

What would you actually say?

How about ‘We can get that to you by this afternoon’?

So write that.

Why write like you speak? You’ll use simpler words in shorter, active-voice sentences. Those are easier to read than traditional ‘professional’ writing.

Structure: put your bottom line up front

What’s your main point? Cut it from the bottom of your writing and paste it up the front.

How do I know it will be at the bottom? Because we’re taught structures like ‘Beginning, Middle, End’. ‘Introduction, Body, Conclusion.’ Those structures put the main point at the bottom.

Your colleagues don’t want it at the bottom. They want it up front. So put it up front for them.

Design: add space and visual variety

We were taught to write walls of words at high school and university. You might have heard things like ‘There’s no such thing as a 1-sentence paragraph. You need a statement, then an explanation, then an example in every paragraph.’

Rubbish.

Professionals skim documents and emails, trying to spot the key ideas quickly. To get them to read more of your text, you need to create lots of space. Space gives the eye a moment to consolidate and take stock before starting again.

Visual variety like headings, bullets, tables, graphs, and images help to break up monotonous paragraphs. If it’s visually interesting, readers pay more attention.

👀 Example of the clarity triplet done well by the Electoral Commission

👀 Before-and-after of an email using the clarity triplet

👀 Blog where I go into the clarity triplet in detail