Saturday, July 4, 2026
Wednesday, March 25, 2026
Think Indian corporates don’t care about plain language? Think again
When I talk about plain language in India, some of the questions I am asked are: Who practises it in India? Do Indians really care about plain language? This line of questioning seems to assume that plain language is a niche cause and isn’t of much relevance to most people.
Today I have some evidence to show that plain language is indeed practised in India, and no less by ICICI Bank, one of the top private sector banks. But there’s a catch. We’ll come to that.
Take a look at the Bank’s terms and conditions for Indian users. You’ll find:
- The very familiar legalese such as repugnant, thereof, and more;
- Lots of nominalizations such as “by giving a written notice”, “during which any maintenance work or repair is required to be carried out”, “Customers can make financial transactions”;
- Even gendered pronouns (from which century is this text?!);
- No proofreading: “external service provider,s or agent's”.
No surprises here.
The readability statistics of this document as measured by Microsoft Word:
Words per sentence: 37.2
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 19.6
Now take a look at the Bank’s privacy notice for EU users. The familiar legalese is missing and you do a double take: Is this the same company?
“We” and “you” are used plentifully. So are tables and vertical lists, though the numbering is a bit off in places. Note how these are missing from the India terms.
Of course, it could be plainer.
Example 1:
Original:
“We are permitted to process your personal data in compliance with Data Protection Legislation by relying on one or more of the following lawful grounds”
Plain language rewrite:
“The Data Protection Legislation permits us to process your personal data on these grounds”
Example 2:
Original:
The processing is necessary for the purposes of a legitimate interest pursued by us, which might be:
- to provide services to you;
- to ensure that our customer accounts are well-managed;
- to prevent, detect, investigate and prosecute…
Plain language rewrite:
The processing is necessary to:
- provide services to you;
- ensure that your account is well-managed;
- to prevent, detect, investigate and prosecute…
The document could be clearer in more ways. But the point is that it is head and shoulders above the terms document for India.
Its readability statistics as measured by Microsoft Word:
Words per sentence: 23.9
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 14
Passive sentences: 18.4%
Do note that I have used the readability statistics simply to provide a broad comparison between the two documents. Readability tools cannot accurately assess clarity.
Obviously, ICICI Bank can do a fairly good job of writing clearly when they put their mind to it. I’m guessing this is true of other Indian corporates as well.
So then why are Indian customers crammed with gobbledygook, while EU customers get clearer communication?
The answer is: regulation. Sometimes from within and sometimes without.
Led by central banks, many banks and financial organizations in Europe have consciously chosen plain language to bring about transparency, trust, and better customer experiences.
And this has not come about in a vacuum. Europe has had a long history of plain language, with many countries requiring it by law. In particular, regulations in the banking and finance sector require clarity, the latest among them being the EU Accessibility Directive. In the UK, the Financial Conduct Authority practises plain language and expects companies to follow suit.
In such a setting, ICICI Bank would rather not stick out with its thereofs and repugnants. I am not surprised. A few years ago when I came to know about the booming job scene for plain language summary writers in India, I was told that they were all writing for clients abroad.
To sum up, the question is not whether Indians care for plain language. It seems we are simply waiting for plain language to become a compliance requirement. That too may not be far, given the many developments that are afoot. But if you keep waiting for too long, you may have a tough time playing catch-up.
Tuesday, May 16, 2023
Plain language: a portal to translation, accessibility, user experience
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.