YouTube Transcript:
Demand to Understand: How Plain Language Makes Life Simpler | Deborah Bosley | TEDxCharlotte
Skip watching entire videos - get the full transcript, search for keywords, and copy with one click.
Share:
Video Transcript
I want to talk to you about what we call
plain language and really what I'm here
to do today is to get you fired up and
to get you to care about this as much as
I care about it so I'm going to start by
telling you a story that led me to this
passion for the use of clear simple
language that we could all understand
there's there's the concept so a few
years ago my parents moved here from
California and they had to have medical
insurance that was supplementary to
their Medicare so I go online and I
quickly realize the only way I'm going
to be able to compare all these possible
insurance companies is to print out all
the information lay it on my dining room
table and then somehow try to compare
benefits cost deductible etc etc well I
wasn't going to do that so instead I
heard there was a great senior center in
town that would help you make these
decisions and this is you know buying
health insurance is a huge decision
especially when I had to do it for
someone else so I go to this senior
citizen in a a place and I tell them my
problem she said oh we can help you with
that not a problem at all she takes me
so what they had done is taken all the
information that I could have done and
put it in a binder and then left me
alone in a room for two hours to figure
out what kind of insurance and I because
I was a professor of tech writing I get
how to make information clear I thought
all they need is a chart that lists the
insurance companies here the deductibles
here are the co-pays here are some of
the most important benefits done in
instead so I made a choice based really
on my instinct more than anything else
so think about how many decisions we
have to make every day based on
information that we don't understand um
so uh I at that moment I realized that I
was never going to write another
academic article that only four people
were going to read I was going to devote
the rest of my life and career to
making information clear and
simple how many of you by the way have
received information in the last week
either through email or on a website or
in the mail that you tried to understand
and you
couldn't hey thank you you are my people
all right so I'm going to bring you on
board with this demand to
understand these are the responses that
we have when we get information so how
many of you were confused with
information how many of you got angry
about it oh you should have heard me
with Verizon the other day how many how
many of you got anxious because that you
were having to make an important
decision and you couldn't make the
decision okay so we all suffer and I
here's what I will tell you that people
read with their emotions and then we use
logic and data to support our decision
so if the information you're getting
makes you emotionally distraught it
destroys or gets in the way of your
ability to make decisions and if you own
a company you would never want
information to cause your customers to
feel uh confused and angry right people
have a right to understand information
that affects their
life so let me take you through a few
examples uh I I I've mentioned Verizon
but I'm not going to mention all the
people I'm going to talk about but from
my health insurance company I get five
pages double-sided for explanation of
benefits now do I need 10 pages of
information for exp no of course what do
I want to know how much have I spent
have I met my deductible and am I going
to owe anybody any money that's really
all I need to know not only did the
company spend all this money mailing
this information to me it's information
overload and frankly I open it up and I
throw it away I don't even bother to
look at it anymore because it's just too
much so our ability to interact with our
health information is um uh becomes
problematic when we're given too
much another area is our democracy we
are not able to function appropr
appropriately in a democracy in which as
some of you or I hope most of you will
remember gor V bush and the whole
problem with the Chads in Florida um and
this isn't a political I don't care who
you voted for but the problem came down
to the fact that the ballot was so
poorly designed people actually thought
they were voting for one person and
their ba their vote counted somewhere
else so the way ballots are and
information um in terms of voting often
makes it difficult or we make the wrong
choice thinking we're making the right
one now another example so this is
discharge papers from a hospital here in
Charlotte there's a place in New in
Washington called the center for plain
language and every year they give an
award and it's called the Wondermark
award as in I wonder what the hell they were
were
thinking and this
one in in 2014 because as a set of as discharge
discharge
papers what do you you have no idea how
to look at this where is your eye
supposed to go what's the most important
information the design is horrible and
they use words like acute coronary
syndrome which really sounds horrible
and probably is but I have who knows
exactly what that is unless you're a
doctor so I'm going show you one
more and this one I think because I
lived a lot of my life you know how many
of you have tried to fill out this fafs
B on yes
yes
yes I would rather have done my income
tax so now I you know we can look at it
and we can all laugh and we can all go
oh my God don't take me there again
however this thing has a hundred
questions a excuse me a 100 questions 80
pages of instruction you hear me that 80
pages of instructions thousands of kids
every year do not go to college not
because they don't have the grades and
not even because they couldn't get the
money but because they cannot fill out
these forms it's awful there's a a move
in Congress to take this form and reduce
it to two questions you know and I keep
thinking if you can do it in two
questions why have we been using this
right I'm mad as hell I'm not going to
take it anymore right
and and what I'm trying to say to you is
you shouldn't either because there are
things we can do one of the things is to
demand that information be
written all right so here's part of the
problem we don't read anymore right I
mean you might read a novel but if
you're looking for health insurance
you're not going to go from beginning to
end and take it to the beach you just
don't you scan we scan information
looking for what what we want to know
right right so here's the problem adults
in the United States now have an
attention span of 8.25 seconds so when
you go to that party and you try to talk
to somebody and suddenly they're gone
because 8.25 seconds or you're trying to
pick out health insurance and after
about maybe if you're lucky 10 seconds
it's like oh my God all right so here's
what I think I I just love this a goldfish
goldfish
how many what do you think their
attention span
is nine
seconds we have less of an attention
span than a goldfish right and in those
8.25 seconds we have to make decisions
so how can we deal with this I am a
strong Advocate I work constantly with
uh with companies and government
agencies trying to make information easy
for people to understand so pling
language is proven empirical evidence
proven writing and design strategies
that make it easy for people to find
what you're looking for understand it
when you find it and then know what the
heck to do with the information now that
you have it let me show you a couple of
examples and the this first one I'm
going to give you a kind of a little
story so my sister went to a facility
and it was a Medicare facility or you
know I guess at this point they probably
all are and she thought the Billings
seemed odd so she wrote Medicare a
letter and said I think there's some
fraud or something going on at this
facility and um the Medicare wrote back
oh my God isn't that unbelievable so she
gets the letter and this is what
it okay now I don't believe in torture
on any level so I'm not going to ask you
to read this um in fact I'm going to do that
that whop
whop
okay there don't bother what the
Medicare ended up telling her was here's
the process that we go through in order
to figure out whether there's fraud you
know to me that's like remember when the
old it people would come in and all you
wanted to know is why your screen was
blue and they would start to tell you
about the inner workings of the computer
and you just go I don't care about about
that in information people should you
should give people information that they
need not what you wanted to tell them
Medicare wanted to assure her that they
have this very serious process instead
all she really wanted to know is what
are you going to do about it and are you
going to let me know right that's all
she needed What did the what information
did she need so plain language
um uh but it doesn't work only with
words so let me show you how it works with
design okay how does this sign make you
feel yeah yeah I mean and you're you're
not even in your car imagine being in
your car with you know people behind you
honking and you've got to figure out if
you can partner a genius I wish I knew
her I know her first name is Nikki I'm
sorry that I don't know her last name
but a gen genius graphic designer in La
created a new way to show signs even
though what I do is called played
language it's also really design plain
Design This is what she
created now I mean I think that's
miraculous imagine how much time
frustration and energy would be saved if
if parking signs look like this so
here's some things that you need to
think about we have the force of law
behind us
uh your privacy statements whether
Financial or health uh did you know that
your investment statement every time you
get it it's supposed by law to tell you
how much you're paying in fees who knew
try to figure out what you're paying in
fees from your statement so there are a
variety of laws of retirement benefits
health benefits that are the force of
law basically says this kind of
information needs to be written in plain
language I can pretty much guarantee you
that in general it may be they may try
but they don't always succeed so that we
have law behind us so now what can we do
we can do a variety of things we can
call as I I mentioned Verizon so I might
as well keep talking about them so I ran
up a Big Bill in internationally because
I kept getting messages from them saying
that I that it's going to cost me
another $25 but I thought it meant going
forward and actually it meant too bad
you've already spent it and now we're
going to going to it's going to cost you
backwards so I got on the phone and part
of the phone call involved my telling
them you need to rewrite these messages
because here's the problem uh secondly
you can talk to people so I'm at the
opthalmologist office the other day and
this very nice doctor says to me how's
your vision when your eyes are in a
superior position
and I'm you know I'm thinking if my eyes
were Superior I would not be sitting
here in the opthalmologist office I have
no idea what a superior position means
so she said to me oh I just mean when
you look up and I said and I did it very
nicely I'm I'm agitated here but I'm
very nice so I said you know I think it
would be really helpful for your
interactions with patients if you would
just say when you look up because we
don't speak
Opthalmology and she said oh you know
what that's a really good idea and I'm
like see I'm mad as hell and I'm not
going to take it
anymore email right uh so let companies
let government know that you are pushing
back that you demand to understand the
information that they sent you because
you do again you have a right to
understand information that affects your life
life
so just a couple more points that's the
outward push now we have to look at
ourselves how can you make a difference
in the way you communicate to other
people so whether you're writing an
artist statement that frankly I love
artists but really guys no one but other
artists can understand those statements
and most of the time even they can't
lawyers I've had many lawyers tell me I
read this contract draft Ed by a friend
of mine and I don't understand what the
contract says uh you're trying to
promote your music video make sure that
you're writing that information so that
the receiver feels connected and knows
what you're saying again what do people
need to know as opposed to how what do I
want to tell them so this is what you
can do first of all you can immediately
eliminate 30% of everything you write
okay 30% because that 30% is the 30% you
want to tell them as opposed to what
they need to know that per 30% is using
phrases like at this point in time
instead of now um so edit right edit
revising is really talk about creativity
and Innovation revising is really where
creativity lies secondly get to the
point I don't want you to tell me that
you're happy that I do business with you
and thank you very much for getting in
touch I want to know what the purpose of
this letter is and so begin everything
you write even emails the purpose of
this is to dot dot dot and then go on
and explain it so get to the point you
think about that goldfish right that
goldfish is going to give that more
attention than we are third avoid jargon
so we all live in a l a you know okay I
have to use my own jargon to explain
jargon so as an academic we would call
it a discourse Community we all live
within a community where we use words
that other people who are in our
professional Community understand but
everyone else doesn't so avoid jargon
there's almost no jargon words that
can't be phrased in plain language plain
common words um use visuals so the
graphic the perfect example was all the
text on the parking sign compared to
just the visual presentation use graphs
use charts use photos particularly if
you're communicating with Millennials
because they are so visual I mean
computers obviously have moved us from a
text based to a visual based
culture um write short sentences whoop
excuse me I'm getting too excited about
this write short sentences I don't know
about you but if I have to read a long
complex sentence by the time I get to
the end of it I have forgotten where the
beginning was and what it was telling me
go back to fifth grade subject verb
object short sentences and finally
always be helpful in be human and be
helpful to the people you're writing to
be human you don't want to sound like a
computer you don't even want to sound
like a business you want to sound like a
person trying to communicate something
to someone
else so why am I so passionate about
this because our lives are affected on a
daily basis our health our financial uh
Our Lives of just I don't want to end on
it something but I do want you to know
children in car seats died years ago
because the instructions were so poorly
written the the seats were not put in
properly so I mean we're talking about
serious I can't swear it just fill in
the word yourself serious stuff
here and we all live in a world of chaos
and confusion and that's not the world I
want to live in I want to live with you
in a world of clarity and we can make
Click on any text or timestamp to jump to that moment in the video
Share:
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
One-Click Copy125+ LanguagesSearch ContentJump to Timestamps
Paste YouTube URL
Enter any YouTube video link to get the full transcript
Transcript Extraction Form
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
Get Our Chrome Extension
Get transcripts instantly without leaving YouTube. Install our Chrome extension for one-click access to any video's transcript directly on the watch page.
Works with YouTube, Coursera, Udemy and more educational platforms
Get Instant Transcripts: Just Edit the Domain in Your Address Bar!
YouTube
←
→
↻
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc
YoutubeToText
←
→
↻
https://youtubetotext.net/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc