Webinars

Our panel of experts answered questions about securing buy-in across an organization for implementing plain language. This discussion featured practical advice from people who have successfully advocated for plain language in a variety of organizations.  

Panelists Louise Strait (Pushing the Pen, UK), Mary Jane Nirdlinger (Town of Chapel Hill, USA), and Chantale Audet (Autrement dit, Canada) answered questions from PLAIN members and shared their experiences, successes, and challenges.   

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Our first webinar of the year was broadcast on the eve that the Plain Language Act was introduced. PLAIN Communications and Conference Board Member Lodewijk van Noort interviewed three guests.

• Lynda Harris, founder of Write Limited, the largest plain language consultancy in the world
• Kate Thompson, Head of Communications at thinkstep-anz, a sustainability consultancy
• Tatiana Mes, Principal Marketing and Communications Manager, Consumer Wealth, Mercer (N.Z.)

The 40 minute webinar covered what the Plain Language Act means for New Zealand, what a key component clear communication is in sustainability, and what projects are improving financial wellness.

If you’d like to read the Plain Language Act for yourself, you can find it here.

The full video is available for PLAIN members. If you’d like to become a member, you can join today and enjoy all of our member resources.

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In this webinar PLAIN host Lodewijk van Noort interviewed Judge Lola about the role of plain language in building an open, online, and model court in Buenos Aires.

Traditionally, we don’t expect judges to make efforts to be closer to citizens. Yet, this is what Judge Lola and her project team set out and managed to achieve a few years ago. Judge Lola tells us about the steps she took that transformed the court into a space that fosters innovation, transparency and collaboration, which led to significant improvement in interaction with citizens.

Lola earned her Law Degree from University of Buenos Aires, and has specialized in Administration of Justice. She is the director of the Observatorio de Lenguaje Claro of the Law School of University of Buenos Aires. She is a judge of the Criminal Court No. 13 of the City of Buenos Aires, and has written several publications.

The full video is available for PLAIN members. If you’d like to become a member, you can join today and enjoy all of our member resources

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The sense and nonsense of icons and pictograms

Charlotte van Hooijdonk (Utrecht University)

February 23, 2022

In PLAIN’s first webinar Charlotte van Hooijdonk presented her research on the comprehensibility of icons and pictograms, which explored whether they would make for more inclusive communication in the Netherlands and Flanders (Belgium).

At the start of the corona crisis, governments needed to communicate about all kinds of new measures that citizens had to adhere to, for example, “keep 1.5 meters distance” and “avoid crowds”. It was essential to share this information in an understandable way, given that Dutch is not the mother tongue of all citizens, and the written word can form a barrier. Icons — highly simplified images that express a message — could help to optimize communication with these groups. The idea is that images are easier to understand than written language. But is that true?

The research, requested by the Municipality of The Hague (The Netherlands) and the City of Ghent (Belgium), and on behalf of the Taalunie (Language Union), provided some results that were striking and sometimes startling.

After the presentation followed a discussion of the implications the research would have for plain language specialists’ work.

This video is available for PLAIN members. If you’d like to become a member, you can join today and enjoy all of our member resources.

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