Badly designed forms and obscure language aren’t just risible; they waste money and damage public services

You may have noticed I have a bit of a thing for badly written official forms, confusing language that makes a Plain English award seem a distant prospect, and the way in which poorly designed details of administration easily escalate into bigger problems.

So this from a US congressman caught my eye:

Confusing language is frustrating. But beyond our frustration are real consequences if we misunderstand government documents and regulations. Confusing language leads to mistakes that have dramatic consequences for our health, safety and financial security.  Think of the ramifications of failing to understand changes in our mortgages, or being confused by Medicare prescription drug information, or not having enough income taxes withheld from our paycheck…

Busy call centers are just one hidden cost of confusing language. The National Small Business Association has estimated that businesses with fewer than 20 employees pay an extra $7,600 per employee annually to comply with confusing regulations…

This week, the Center for Plain Language released its second “Plain Writing Report Card,” grading federal agencies on their efforts to implement the requirements of the Plain Writing Act. The report card predictably identified a reluctance by federal agencies to change ingrained habits.  Several agencies are lagging far behind the requirements of the law. But progress is being made.

The Center also just opened nominations for its 2014 ClearMark Awards, applauding examples of plain writing at its best.  (The Center also awards the WonderMark Award, a sort of “Razzie” award designed to shame the worst of the worst.)

That last point shows that, in some respects, things are pretty good in Britain. Horribly clunky language such as that used by Ofcom to ‘explain’ the data protection opt in/out/hokey cokey on their website is increasingly rare.

But even individual sentences that score well for plain English don’t make for an easy to understand system if there are far too many of them, struggling to explain a system that is far too complicated. Step forward, the Office of the Public Guardian.

Public services need more people who really value simplicity and clarity. As Steve Jobs, who pretty much made most of his career out of making difficult things simple, that can require genius and drive.

But we desperately need to replace the sort of mediocrity which thinks putting letters in bolded block capitals is the way to make a really good form that will be used as well as possible.