Let me explain how. And, at the end of the article, I also talk about how all four areas of work can and should come together to enable a better experience of the web for anyone.
I write this article because I have worked in the translation industry and I am a plain language writer and editor. Yet, I often see that professionals in both fields work in parallel, but hardly together. Such bubbles also perhaps exist between accessibility and plain language, and UX and plain language. This article is an attempt to show that together is better.
Plain language and translation
Plain language is, in actuality, an act of translation. A plain language editor converts mystifying mumbo-jumbo into information that the intended audience can understand and use. If you compare the before and after versions, it might just feel like two different languages!A translator also needs to be a plain language writer and editor. At least, a good translator does.
When a translator first encounters a chunk of text in the source language, they must first understand it. If this is text is not in plain language, the translator – whether or not they acknowledge it – mentally does the plain language editing. Only then, can they proceed to write the text in the target language.
As Dominique Joseph, translator and plain language trainer, puts it, “[Translators] translate the meaning, not the words.” She goes on to describe a number of steps that she takes as a translator to make the text “easy to read, easy to understand, easy to use.” She has put it wonderfully and you should head over to her blog to read it in full.
As I went through her steps, I realized that what she is describing is about “helping readers find what they are looking for, understand it, and then take action based on that information.” And that, my friend, is plain language.
When plain language moves from being a mental process of the translator to being an explicit step in translation, or better still in authoring, translation improves.
Marie-Elise Georgelin, plain language trainer at Labrador Language Services, writes in the latest PLAIN E-journal, “...using plain language means:
• messages can sink in faster
• there are fewer misinterpretations
• translations will be quicker, more effective, and more accurate.”
When Labrador’s translation team worked on plain source text, they produced translations which also had a high plain language score and fewer words. “The quality of the source text systematically improved the translation by the same amount,” Georgelin writes. She says plain language in the source text can also similarly improve machine translation output.
Plain language and accessibility
Plain language is an essential part of the accessibility tool kit. The Washington Post says, “Writing in plain language makes our content more accessible to a wide variety of people, including those with cognitive disabilities, lower reading literacy and less background knowledge of the topic or concept being covered. This also matters in the design of user interfaces.”A more targeted version of plain language is available for people with reading and learning disabilities. It is called Easy to Read. It helps “people with intellectual disabilities learn new things and take part in society,” to name a few benefits.
A few years ago, I worked for an online entertainment magazine where I would re-write popular news items into easy-to-read articles. I would first re-write them in plain language and then do an easy-to-read version. Doing the plain language re-write was the bulk of the work, I observed. Easy-to-read was just taking care of a few more technical things from that point.
Again, you don’t always have to be disabled to appreciate how plain language can make text more accessible to you. Imagine going through a dense paragraph filled with jargon and big, confusing words when you have a splitting headache.
Plain language and user experience (UX)
UX is at the very heart of the plain language movement. Plain language was born to serve only one purpose: help the user achieve their objective. “User” may not be the particular word they used back in the 1970s when the first efforts began to write in plain language. But whether you call them the reader, consumer, or citizen, it is still the same thing.When a user is on your website, you cannot hem and haw, throw fat slabs of gobbledygook at them, and expect them to be still hanging around. The user is on your website for a purpose. And, the plain reality is that your content must help them achieve that purpose.
Plain language lets you have that conversation with your user without getting in their way, without alienating them. It is about sharing information they are seeking and came to your website for.
By writing in plain language, you also hit the right spots with SEO. People almost always use plain language when they are searching for something. If your content is already embedded with these keywords, your potential users will find you right away.
Not to forget that all of the above areas of work – translation, accessibility, and UX – also have several overlaps and that none are enough on their own, not even plain language.
For instance, translation increases accessibility. Let’s remember that the purpose of accessibility is to ensure “...social inclusion for people with disabilities as well as others, such as older people, people in rural areas, and people in developing countries”. (Emphasis added.) Or, as Alba Villamil, user researcher from HmntyCntrd, says, plain language is not enough when designing for immigrants or people with English as Second Language (ESL).
Let’s say you have plain language and translation. However, if you have elements on your website that disrupt the user, it’s lose-lose. Large, persistent ads on some Indian newspaper sites come to my mind. I often lose the thread as I am reading on these sites when paragraphs are divided up by huge blocks of ads or distracting, garish video ads display right next to the article.
There possibly are other areas of work with which plain language intersects to enable fulfilling human experiences. Do write in if you think of any.
