Seriously bad chats
How people read, writing inclusive and accessible letters and emails, and a dyslexia-friendly style guide.
Here's another edition of Plain English not-so-Weekly plucked from a gap in time and sent right to your inbox. I'm Iain Broome, in case you've forgotten.
Forgive me once more for being so tardy with these emails. It has been a very busy few months indeed. I do still have lots of lovely plans for this newsletter and its associated content. Promise!
Have you noticed lots of people who work in content and user-centred design moving from Twitter to Bluesky this week? Seems like it could be an exciting development. You can follow me on Bluesky if you are there too.
That's it. Hope you are magical. Don't forget your bookmarks.
Iain
An excellent thing to point to when you are having seriously bad chats with people who want to make things more complicated:
People come to your site to use it not visit it. They're there to do a task, or get information to help them do a task offline. Even if their task is to gain knowledge, they want to find and add it to their personal information bank, their brain, as quickly as possible. They'd download it directly if they could.
This is from the ace Readability Guidelines by the way.
How Do I Ensure My Letters and Emails are Inclusive and Accessible?
I've spent more time in the last few months writing letters than I have my entire previous 43 years. It's tricky, I tell you. But this advice from Historic England, of all places, is very useful.
Super handy style guide from the British Dyslexia Association, which includes nuggets like this:
Use sans serif fonts, such as Arial and Comic Sans, as letters can appear less crowded. Alternatives include Verdana, Tahoma, Century Gothic, Trebuchet, Calibri, Open Sans.
See also the Dyslexie font, designed specifically for people with Dyslexia.
How to write hyperlink text for better web accessibility
If you ever see a colleague, or dare I even say friend, writing 'click here' links, please send them to this page from Scope immediately. I wouldn't be against you giving them a mild ticking off, to be honest.
In short, people want to know where they’re going if they click a link. The text you use in hyperlinks should tell them.
I published something similar about writing good hyperlinks many years ago.
Do not use "reading age" when thinking about adults
It is so common to talk about reading age and yet it seems so obviously the wrong thing to do. This post from Caroline Jarrett at Effortmark explains why:
Do not use “reading age” when thinking about adults. It’s not helpful, and it fails to acknowledge the life experience of people with reading difficulties.
You should also take a look at Caroline's post from way back in 2010 on writing for people who do not read easily.
"How you write an email or a letter often depends on the audience. As a general rule, you should aim to make your correspondence as easy to read as possible, not least because people usually have many emails or letters to get through."
Historic England
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