0:11 I want to talk to you about what we call
0:14 plain language and really what I'm here
0:17 to do today is to get you fired up and
0:20 to get you to care about this as much as
0:23 I care about it so I'm going to start by
0:26 telling you a story that led me to this
0:29 passion for the use of clear simple
0:32 language that we could all understand
0:34 there's there's the concept so a few
0:36 years ago my parents moved here from
0:38 California and they had to have medical
0:41 insurance that was supplementary to
0:44 their Medicare so I go online and I
0:46 quickly realize the only way I'm going
0:49 to be able to compare all these possible
0:52 insurance companies is to print out all
0:54 the information lay it on my dining room
0:58 table and then somehow try to compare
1:02 benefits cost deductible etc etc well I
1:05 wasn't going to do that so instead I
1:07 heard there was a great senior center in
1:09 town that would help you make these
1:11 decisions and this is you know buying
1:13 health insurance is a huge decision
1:15 especially when I had to do it for
1:18 someone else so I go to this senior
1:21 citizen in a a place and I tell them my
1:23 problem she said oh we can help you with
1:26 that not a problem at all she takes me
1:34 so what they had done is taken all the
1:37 information that I could have done and
1:38 put it in a binder and then left me
1:41 alone in a room for two hours to figure
1:43 out what kind of insurance and I because
1:46 I was a professor of tech writing I get
1:49 how to make information clear I thought
1:52 all they need is a chart that lists the
1:54 insurance companies here the deductibles
1:56 here are the co-pays here are some of
1:59 the most important benefits done in
2:03 instead so I made a choice based really
2:06 on my instinct more than anything else
2:09 so think about how many decisions we
2:11 have to make every day based on
2:16 information that we don't understand um
2:20 so uh I at that moment I realized that I
2:22 was never going to write another
2:24 academic article that only four people
2:27 were going to read I was going to devote
2:30 the rest of my life and career to
2:32 making information clear and
2:35 simple how many of you by the way have
2:38 received information in the last week
2:40 either through email or on a website or
2:43 in the mail that you tried to understand
2:44 and you
2:48 couldn't hey thank you you are my people
2:50 all right so I'm going to bring you on
2:54 board with this demand to
2:58 understand these are the responses that
3:00 we have when we get information so how
3:02 many of you were confused with
3:05 information how many of you got angry
3:07 about it oh you should have heard me
3:10 with Verizon the other day how many how
3:13 many of you got anxious because that you
3:14 were having to make an important
3:17 decision and you couldn't make the
3:19 decision okay so we all suffer and I
3:21 here's what I will tell you that people
3:24 read with their emotions and then we use
3:28 logic and data to support our decision
3:30 so if the information you're getting
3:32 makes you emotionally distraught it
3:34 destroys or gets in the way of your
3:37 ability to make decisions and if you own
3:40 a company you would never want
3:42 information to cause your customers to
3:46 feel uh confused and angry right people
3:48 have a right to understand information
3:50 that affects their
3:53 life so let me take you through a few
3:57 examples uh I I I've mentioned Verizon
3:59 but I'm not going to mention all the
4:01 people I'm going to talk about but from
4:03 my health insurance company I get five
4:06 pages double-sided for explanation of
4:10 benefits now do I need 10 pages of
4:12 information for exp no of course what do
4:16 I want to know how much have I spent
4:18 have I met my deductible and am I going
4:20 to owe anybody any money that's really
4:23 all I need to know not only did the
4:25 company spend all this money mailing
4:28 this information to me it's information
4:32 overload and frankly I open it up and I
4:34 throw it away I don't even bother to
4:36 look at it anymore because it's just too
4:39 much so our ability to interact with our
4:43 health information is um uh becomes
4:46 problematic when we're given too
4:49 much another area is our democracy we
4:52 are not able to function appropr
4:55 appropriately in a democracy in which as
4:57 some of you or I hope most of you will
5:00 remember gor V bush and the whole
5:04 problem with the Chads in Florida um and
5:05 this isn't a political I don't care who
5:08 you voted for but the problem came down
5:10 to the fact that the ballot was so
5:12 poorly designed people actually thought
5:14 they were voting for one person and
5:17 their ba their vote counted somewhere
5:20 else so the way ballots are and
5:24 information um in terms of voting often
5:26 makes it difficult or we make the wrong
5:28 choice thinking we're making the right
5:31 one now another example so this is
5:34 discharge papers from a hospital here in
5:36 Charlotte there's a place in New in
5:38 Washington called the center for plain
5:41 language and every year they give an
5:43 award and it's called the Wondermark
5:46 award as in I wonder what the hell they were
5:48 were
5:50 thinking and this
5:55 one in in 2014 because as a set of as discharge
5:57 discharge
6:00 papers what do you you have no idea how
6:02 to look at this where is your eye
6:05 supposed to go what's the most important
6:08 information the design is horrible and
6:11 they use words like acute coronary
6:13 syndrome which really sounds horrible
6:16 and probably is but I have who knows
6:18 exactly what that is unless you're a
6:21 doctor so I'm going show you one
6:24 more and this one I think because I
6:28 lived a lot of my life you know how many
6:30 of you have tried to fill out this fafs
6:31 B on yes
6:33 yes
6:38 yes I would rather have done my income
6:41 tax so now I you know we can look at it
6:43 and we can all laugh and we can all go
6:46 oh my God don't take me there again
6:49 however this thing has a hundred
6:54 questions a excuse me a 100 questions 80
6:57 pages of instruction you hear me that 80
7:01 pages of instructions thousands of kids
7:03 every year do not go to college not
7:05 because they don't have the grades and
7:07 not even because they couldn't get the
7:10 money but because they cannot fill out
7:14 these forms it's awful there's a a move
7:16 in Congress to take this form and reduce
7:19 it to two questions you know and I keep
7:21 thinking if you can do it in two
7:24 questions why have we been using this
7:27 right I'm mad as hell I'm not going to
7:31 take it anymore right
7:34 and and what I'm trying to say to you is
7:36 you shouldn't either because there are
7:39 things we can do one of the things is to
7:41 demand that information be
7:44 written all right so here's part of the
7:46 problem we don't read anymore right I
7:48 mean you might read a novel but if
7:49 you're looking for health insurance
7:51 you're not going to go from beginning to
7:52 end and take it to the beach you just
7:56 don't you scan we scan information
7:59 looking for what what we want to know
8:02 right right so here's the problem adults
8:04 in the United States now have an
8:08 attention span of 8.25 seconds so when
8:10 you go to that party and you try to talk
8:13 to somebody and suddenly they're gone
8:17 because 8.25 seconds or you're trying to
8:19 pick out health insurance and after
8:22 about maybe if you're lucky 10 seconds
8:24 it's like oh my God all right so here's
8:27 what I think I I just love this a goldfish
8:30 goldfish
8:31 how many what do you think their
8:33 attention span
8:37 is nine
8:39 seconds we have less of an attention
8:43 span than a goldfish right and in those
8:47 8.25 seconds we have to make decisions
8:50 so how can we deal with this I am a
8:53 strong Advocate I work constantly with
8:56 uh with companies and government
8:59 agencies trying to make information easy
9:01 for people to understand so pling
9:04 language is proven empirical evidence
9:06 proven writing and design strategies
9:09 that make it easy for people to find
9:11 what you're looking for understand it
9:13 when you find it and then know what the
9:15 heck to do with the information now that
9:18 you have it let me show you a couple of
9:21 examples and the this first one I'm
9:22 going to give you a kind of a little
9:27 story so my sister went to a facility
9:30 and it was a Medicare facility or you
9:31 know I guess at this point they probably
9:34 all are and she thought the Billings
9:36 seemed odd so she wrote Medicare a
9:38 letter and said I think there's some
9:41 fraud or something going on at this
9:45 facility and um the Medicare wrote back
9:48 oh my God isn't that unbelievable so she
9:51 gets the letter and this is what
9:54 it okay now I don't believe in torture
9:57 on any level so I'm not going to ask you
10:01 to read this um in fact I'm going to do that
10:02 that whop
10:04 whop
10:08 okay there don't bother what the
10:12 Medicare ended up telling her was here's
10:14 the process that we go through in order
10:16 to figure out whether there's fraud you
10:18 know to me that's like remember when the
10:20 old it people would come in and all you
10:22 wanted to know is why your screen was
10:24 blue and they would start to tell you
10:27 about the inner workings of the computer
10:29 and you just go I don't care about about
10:32 that in information people should you
10:35 should give people information that they
10:38 need not what you wanted to tell them
10:41 Medicare wanted to assure her that they
10:44 have this very serious process instead
10:48 all she really wanted to know is what
10:50 are you going to do about it and are you
10:52 going to let me know right that's all
10:55 she needed What did the what information
10:59 did she need so plain language
11:02 um uh but it doesn't work only with
11:04 words so let me show you how it works with
11:12 design okay how does this sign make you
11:15 feel yeah yeah I mean and you're you're
11:17 not even in your car imagine being in
11:20 your car with you know people behind you
11:22 honking and you've got to figure out if
11:25 you can partner a genius I wish I knew
11:27 her I know her first name is Nikki I'm
11:28 sorry that I don't know her last name
11:31 but a gen genius graphic designer in La
11:34 created a new way to show signs even
11:36 though what I do is called played
11:39 language it's also really design plain
11:42 Design This is what she
11:45 created now I mean I think that's
11:47 miraculous imagine how much time
11:50 frustration and energy would be saved if
11:54 if parking signs look like this so
11:55 here's some things that you need to
11:58 think about we have the force of law
11:59 behind us
12:02 uh your privacy statements whether
12:05 Financial or health uh did you know that
12:07 your investment statement every time you
12:10 get it it's supposed by law to tell you
12:13 how much you're paying in fees who knew
12:15 try to figure out what you're paying in
12:18 fees from your statement so there are a
12:21 variety of laws of retirement benefits
12:24 health benefits that are the force of
12:26 law basically says this kind of
12:28 information needs to be written in plain
12:30 language I can pretty much guarantee you
12:34 that in general it may be they may try
12:37 but they don't always succeed so that we
12:41 have law behind us so now what can we do
12:43 we can do a variety of things we can
12:46 call as I I mentioned Verizon so I might
12:49 as well keep talking about them so I ran
12:52 up a Big Bill in internationally because
12:54 I kept getting messages from them saying
12:56 that I that it's going to cost me
12:59 another $25 but I thought it meant going
13:01 forward and actually it meant too bad
13:03 you've already spent it and now we're
13:05 going to going to it's going to cost you
13:08 backwards so I got on the phone and part
13:11 of the phone call involved my telling
13:14 them you need to rewrite these messages
13:17 because here's the problem uh secondly
13:19 you can talk to people so I'm at the
13:22 opthalmologist office the other day and
13:25 this very nice doctor says to me how's
13:27 your vision when your eyes are in a
13:30 superior position
13:33 and I'm you know I'm thinking if my eyes
13:35 were Superior I would not be sitting
13:38 here in the opthalmologist office I have
13:41 no idea what a superior position means
13:44 so she said to me oh I just mean when
13:47 you look up and I said and I did it very
13:49 nicely I'm I'm agitated here but I'm
13:52 very nice so I said you know I think it
13:54 would be really helpful for your
13:56 interactions with patients if you would
13:59 just say when you look up because we
14:00 don't speak
14:02 Opthalmology and she said oh you know
14:06 what that's a really good idea and I'm
14:09 like see I'm mad as hell and I'm not
14:10 going to take it
14:15 anymore email right uh so let companies
14:18 let government know that you are pushing
14:21 back that you demand to understand the
14:24 information that they sent you because
14:27 you do again you have a right to
14:28 understand information that affects your life
14:29 life
14:33 so just a couple more points that's the
14:37 outward push now we have to look at
14:40 ourselves how can you make a difference
14:42 in the way you communicate to other
14:45 people so whether you're writing an
14:47 artist statement that frankly I love
14:50 artists but really guys no one but other
14:52 artists can understand those statements
14:54 and most of the time even they can't
14:57 lawyers I've had many lawyers tell me I
15:00 read this contract draft Ed by a friend
15:02 of mine and I don't understand what the
15:05 contract says uh you're trying to
15:07 promote your music video make sure that
15:11 you're writing that information so that
15:15 the receiver feels connected and knows
15:17 what you're saying again what do people
15:20 need to know as opposed to how what do I
15:22 want to tell them so this is what you
15:25 can do first of all you can immediately
15:29 eliminate 30% of everything you write
15:33 okay 30% because that 30% is the 30% you
15:35 want to tell them as opposed to what
15:39 they need to know that per 30% is using
15:42 phrases like at this point in time
15:48 instead of now um so edit right edit
15:50 revising is really talk about creativity
15:52 and Innovation revising is really where
15:55 creativity lies secondly get to the
15:57 point I don't want you to tell me that
15:59 you're happy that I do business with you
16:02 and thank you very much for getting in
16:04 touch I want to know what the purpose of
16:07 this letter is and so begin everything
16:10 you write even emails the purpose of
16:14 this is to dot dot dot and then go on
16:17 and explain it so get to the point you
16:20 think about that goldfish right that
16:21 goldfish is going to give that more
16:26 attention than we are third avoid jargon
16:30 so we all live in a l a you know okay I
16:32 have to use my own jargon to explain
16:35 jargon so as an academic we would call
16:37 it a discourse Community we all live
16:39 within a community where we use words
16:41 that other people who are in our
16:44 professional Community understand but
16:48 everyone else doesn't so avoid jargon
16:51 there's almost no jargon words that
16:54 can't be phrased in plain language plain
16:59 common words um use visuals so the
17:01 graphic the perfect example was all the
17:04 text on the parking sign compared to
17:07 just the visual presentation use graphs
17:09 use charts use photos particularly if
17:12 you're communicating with Millennials
17:14 because they are so visual I mean
17:17 computers obviously have moved us from a
17:19 text based to a visual based
17:23 culture um write short sentences whoop
17:25 excuse me I'm getting too excited about
17:28 this write short sentences I don't know
17:30 about you but if I have to read a long
17:32 complex sentence by the time I get to
17:34 the end of it I have forgotten where the
17:38 beginning was and what it was telling me
17:40 go back to fifth grade subject verb
17:43 object short sentences and finally
17:46 always be helpful in be human and be
17:50 helpful to the people you're writing to
17:52 be human you don't want to sound like a
17:54 computer you don't even want to sound
17:57 like a business you want to sound like a
18:00 person trying to communicate something
18:02 to someone
18:06 else so why am I so passionate about
18:09 this because our lives are affected on a
18:13 daily basis our health our financial uh
18:16 Our Lives of just I don't want to end on
18:18 it something but I do want you to know
18:21 children in car seats died years ago
18:23 because the instructions were so poorly
18:26 written the the seats were not put in
18:28 properly so I mean we're talking about
18:31 serious I can't swear it just fill in
18:35 the word yourself serious stuff
18:40 here and we all live in a world of chaos
18:43 and confusion and that's not the world I
18:45 want to live in I want to live with you
18:49 in a world of clarity and we can make
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