The difference between a plain language writer and information designer
November 4th, 2009

A frequent comment I get from people I introduce myself to is ‘oh, the plain english campaign’ and then I find myself trying to explain that it’s not all about that, but that’s part of it. And every time I try and explain I’m pretty sure I come up with a different version, even if it’s based around the same ideas.

So, for you, and probably more importantly for me, here’s the difference between a ‘plain language writer’ and an ‘information designer’ – well, this particular information designer anyway.

My point of reference is another comment I frequently hear:

“I don’t read anything”

It sounds like an absurd comment, and in many ways it is. After all we only really have three ways of taking information in: we see it; we read it; we hear it. And of course the information we read is only really any use to us if it is in language we can understand – the job of plain language writers.

The underlying message of the “I don’t read anything” statement is actually less absurd. Many people feel they don’t have time to read anything substantial, even when it’s for their own benefit. The ways we choose to access information are slowly becoming dominated by statuses and headlines: think about Facebook and Twitter, people’s emotions and activities crammed into a sentence or less where in the past a hand-written letter would have been used; even newspapers struggle to exist in their traditional guise with ever increasing numbers of us taking the option to go online where we can go direct to what we want to look at rather than browsing to see what we think we might find interesting.

As an information designer, I see my job as being to guide people to the information they want or need to know as quickly and easily as possible. Whether that’s an item on a website, the correct question on a form or the right section in some instructions the principle remains the same.

For information designers and plain language writers alike, the success of their work can be reliant on others understanding the principles they have worked to. For the plain language writer seeing their efforts dumped into a visually unappealing document must be very disheartening, knowing the content inside will be judged by its cover. And speaking for the information designers, no matter how easy I make it for someone to find the piece of information they want, if that information doesn’t make sense to them, then all I have helped them to do is waste a bit less of their time.

In order to reduce the chances of our work being desecrated, the fields of plain language and information design have a certain element of cross-over in skills, and frequently work together to deliver completely effective solutions which aren’t compromised. From my own perspective, the nature of the things I design means I couldn’t succeed without being able to use words, but paragraphs are about as far as I go.