In Plain English

The original title of my Division II at Hampshire was "In Plain English." The thought was that I'd learn a bunch of technical computer stuff, and write about it in layman terms. As it turns out my focus shifted to interface design and away from writing, so I never learned how to write as clearly as I might.

At work we're struggling with the legal language in our app. Whereas most privacy policies are all about hidden ways that the company can screw you, ours actually has positive things like: our company does not even have access the servers containing your personally identifiable medical information. We bend over backwards to lock ourselves out from the database, and even the production servers, but do we tell them that? No. The policy is all about edge-cases, "Under these special circumstances we can do this," and other such disclaimers. The language itself is cumbersome to read, and there's just too much of it.

To convey the message that is hidden in our privacy policy to the end users are working on an enhancement (Whahooo! My unofficial job description has been expanded to include requirements, one of my long term goals and the next natural step in my career path) to increase the "Perception of Privacy/Security" in our application. The focus is on perception because the current reality is, and has been, that our application is highly secure and private, but we haven't done enough to signal to people that this is true. The enhancement will require some writing, some icon design, and some serious thought about our content strategy. Lots of fun.

Here is my mission. Read this article: How to write in plain English and apply the ideas to my own writing, both at work and at home.