Writing Matters

Awesome Download: Toolkit for Making Written Material Clear and Effective

Government communicators have produced something wonderful, again. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has just published an 11-chapter downloadable Toolkit for Making Written Material Clear and Effective:

"The Toolkit includes detailed guidelines for writing, graphic design, and culturally appropriate translation from English into other languages.  It includes a book-length guide to methods of testing written material with readers, and covers special topics in writing and design.  These special topics include cautions about using readability formulas to assess material, things to know if your material is for older adults, a comparison of written material on websites versus written material in printed formats, and an extended “before and after” example of using the Toolkit guidelines to revise a brochure."

I really liked:

• Part 2: Using a reader-centered approach. "Remember that you are writing for your readers, not yourself."
• Part 7: Using readability formulas. "Readability formulas ignore most factors that contribute to ease of reading and comprehension."

Take a look and let me know what you think and how you might use this Toolkit.

-- Leslie O'Flahavan

Plain Language Act: An Announcement or a Send-up?

It's good to know the folks at FedWeek have a sense of humor, even about plain language. Here's their tongue-in-cheek announcement about the Plain Writing Act of 2010, signed into law by President Obama on October 13, 2010:

Plain Language Act Signed

"President Obama has signed into law (P.L. 111-274) legislation requiring agencies to use plain language in documents directed toward the public and to train employees in clear writing—for example, writing that does not utilize abstruse verbiage rather than use plain words, nor is redundant by making a point more than once (that is, twice or more), nor contains sentences that keep going even when the point at which they should have stopped arrived far before the period, with period in this case referring to a punctuation mark, rather than a measure of time, such as the time it takes to read writing full of unnecessary dependent clauses, sometimes known as subordinate clauses, that make it difficult for the reader to recall the subject by the end of the predicate, and that would not pass the law's standards."

Other joyful announcements of the Plain Writing Act:

• ABC News reports "Obama Signs Law We Can All Understand"
• The Center for Plain Language announces "President Obama Has Signed the Plain Writing of Act of 2010"

Yes, the government went and made writing well a law. This is going to be very good for readers!

-- Leslie O'Flahavan

The New Yorker Spoofs an E-Mail Auto-Response

If you like your humor dry and erudite, this week's New Yorker has a hilarious Shouts & Murmurs section in which Martin Marks spoofs an e-mail auto-response:

"...Please note that if your e-mail is more than three (3) sentences in length I have read the first three (3) sentences, skimmed the opening paragraph, and sort of eyeballed the rest of it. Please do not expect a response to your e-mail anytime soon, if at all, for I am not a mind reader, and therefore cannot guess the nature of anything beyond the first three (3) sentences. For those of you who continue to insist on sending e-mails longer than three (3) sentences, here is a Wikipedia entry on haiku. Reformat your e-mails accordingly, as in this example:

 I am busy now;
 The Internet has stolen
 So much precious time."

Want more wry e-mail-related pieces from the New Yorker? Check out:

• A Mass E-Mail: "...I’d also appreciate it if you could send me your e-mail address...I assume that it goes without saying that I’ll also need your bank-account numbers, and any PIN or routing numbers associated with those accounts. Of course, I will also need your Social Security number..."  
• E-Mail Will Eat You Alive, a review of John Freeman’s book The Tyranny of E-mail. Freeman writes, “Computers have become handier, cuter, some might even say sexier, but they do very little to engage us as physical beings. They have almost no smell; only the most fanatical have tried licking them.”

-- Leslie O'Flahavan

Your Web Content Is Hurting My Eyes and My Brain

Dear U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission,

Usually I comment on the quality of the writing at a web site, but I've got to talk to you frankly today. The text on your home page is hurting my eyes:

• Your masthead is right-aligned
• Your left column is centered
• The labels for the main sections of your site are left-aligned (white text on a blue band) but each item listed below is right-aligned, which leaves a ragged blank mess on the left

SEC, I don't know where to look. My eyes are hopping around everywhere; I am conducting a very unproductive experiment in scanning. Maybe you could make your page look more like the Food and Drug Administration's home page. The FDA's isn't perfect, but the text is left-aligned.

SEC, please bone up on the usability research on text alignment. For homework, you must read:

• Right-Justified Navigation Menus Impede Scannability by Jakob Nielsen
• Eye Gaze Patterns while Searching vs. Browsing a Website from Usability News

And, SEC, whatever you do, please do not use the HR Management home page as your model. The only thing worse than text with hard-to-scan alignment is text that moves.

-- Leslie O'Flahavan