The Crystalmeth Mark

This was my Eureka moment in the bath – not exactly Archimedes I grant you. I think it’s time for a new standard in creating simple information. I give you the ‘The Crystalmeth Mark – can people understand your information while under the influence?’

Alright, so you’ve taken a look at the date and realised I’m not entirely serious, but I do have a valid point to make.

A couple of days ago, I had a go at rewriting a leaflet about ‘Summary Care Records’ that came through the door from the NHS. It was pointed out to me by a friend, with more than a little disgust, that the original had received a Crystal Mark. For anyone that doesn’t know, this is label on a document which signifies that, according to the Plain English Campaign, the document has been written using what they consider as plain English.

And they are probably right: what is in there is pretty simple. However, I do think the world has moved on since the Plain English Campaign was originated, and the standards we should expect before handing out this kind of recommendation have surely risen. In fact, what qualifies for a Crystal Mark should probably be a minimum we can expect. The concept of cutting out jargon and writing short, understandable sentences is pretty commonplace now, with many outside the plain English field offering it as a piece of standard advice.

If there were to be a replacement standard to aspire to, it should also surely include measures of design, appropriate brevity (whilst still delivering the message of course) and a logical order of information. It’s something I have written about before, but I’ll say it again, in case you can’t remember: attention spans are getting shorter and more and more effort is needed to help people absorb information.

Here’s an example. Writing shorter sentences invariably leads to longer text because you have to keep stopping and starting. Simple logic says that longer a piece of text is, the less inclined anyone will be to read it: you don’t need research to tell you that, think what you would do. So, no matter how well written text is, it has to appear simple to give it a fighting chance of being read.

As for this new standard, who should judge it? Novel idea, but how about the users. In many years, as an employee and on my own, designing and writing information to make it easy for people to understand, not one piece of work I have been involved in has been submitted for a Crystal Mark. The simple reason why is that proof of its success has come from research or, even better, good old fashioned numbers. The audience should be the judge.