Easy to read is easy to do

When my to-do list is a million miles long, I pick off the easy ones first so I feel like I've accomplished something. Are you the same?Behavioural scientists would say you are.  B J Fogg describes the flipside in Tiny Habits: "The harder a behavior is to do, the less likely you are to do it."

This holds true with reading

Two scientists tested whether our tendency to put off tricky things translated into people's reading behaviour. Hyunjin Song and Norbert Schwarz found that if instructions were easy to read, people were more likely to follow them.

It's called processing fluency

When things are easy to read, we 'process' them more fluently. And processing fluency is directly related to action. Song and Norbert published their study in 2006 under the title If it's hard to read, it's hard to do.So if you want people to:answer your emailsay yes to your proposal decide in favour of your recommendationdo their action from your meeting minutes......use plain language!

✨ Sign up for regular writing tips – get new tips direct to your inbox every 2 weeks

↩️ Back to the writing tips

✨ Check out my Email course, where you’ll learn how to get quick, complete replies to emails.

✨ Look into the School of unProfessional Writing to learn about plain language at your own pace