We can make financial documents easier for customers to read, despite their length.

Many of us complain about the length of financial and legal documents. I’ve even seen artwork showing the sheer ridiculousness of the length of corporations’ terms and conditions.

When it comes to financial work, clients often ask me to ‘make things shorter’. To an extent, I can. But the truth is that there is often a lot of important information to get across. Financial companies have an obligation to properly explain fees and costs, to tell us about maturity dates and penalties, and to carefully set out any policy exclusions.

The problem is that at the very moment when we have to read this essential information, we’re often distracted by stress. We feel the urgency of making the financial decision, and that stress can actually make it harder to get through the information we need and make an informed decision about our financial lives.

So how can you as a financial services firm make financial information more understandable to read – even though there’s always a lot of it.

The key is to tell people only what they need to know. And make sure they understand why they need to know it.

Every plain-language practitioner will start off by saying you need to understand your readers. This is so important for many reasons. To me, the most important reason is that understanding the reader will allow you to work out what information is relevant to them.

All the information you give must mean something for the reader, and you must not give any information that does not mean something to the reader. It’s a case of ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth’.

Take an insurance exclusion as an example: An insurance company wanted to tell customers that a home insurance policy doesn’t cover theft if the customer doesn’t have a home alarm. A plain-language writer would always ask why this information is relevant. For example, it’s not only about deciding whether to claim, or even whether to buy the policy. The customer might use this information to decide whether they should install an alarm system before their cover starts. So, we have the same core information but a very different angle.

Making information relevant means connecting the formal wording to the customer’s real needs.

Once you’ve figured out what to say, then it’s important to carefully think about where to say it. Customers often miss information because of where it appears. Even if information is disclosed, it won’t be effective if it’s disclosed at the wrong time.

Let’s continue our example of the exclusion for theft if there’s no home alarm. Where would we put this information? Of course, the legal exclusion belongs in the terms. But I can also imagine a really useful sentence in a ‘before-you-buy’ checklist: ‘Decide whether it’s worth your while to install a home alarm’.

When companies don’t put information at the right time, they might be using a deceptive pattern. We all know what happens with the so-called ‘free trial’ subscription services. The user decides to go for the ‘free trial’, only to find out once they’ve entered all their details that they also need to give their credit card information – and remember to cancel within five days.

Financial information often uses language that feels normal inside a firm but is unclear to customers.

I still often have to assure financial firms that in plain-language work, you don’t work alone. All rewriting is a matter of collaboration with many stakeholders. And legal and compliance experts are especially important.

There are many phrases that can be simplified without any differences in meaning.

When we have a lot of complex information, it’s easy to fall back to the position that the only solution is to shorten it.

When we have a lot to explain, making documents short sometimes isn’t possible. But we can make longer information easier to process by layering it.

This means that we allow the reader to skim the information first for a birds-eye view, before getting into the detail. It might mean having different sections for different purposes, or different levels of details.

One of the easiest techniques for layering is simply using informative headings. For example, a heading such as “Fees” may be too broad. “When you will pay this fee” gives the customer more help. “What we do not cover” is clearer than “Exclusions and limitations” for many readers.

Useful headings help customers find the answer before they read the detail.

I like to use examples in financial information because they show how a rule works.

It’s sometimes tricky as each situation is different, and you have to be careful of misleading expectations.

Good examples usually:

Examples are especially useful when customers need to compare products or understand consequences.

A useful review does not have to start with every document.

Start with information that customers rely on before they make a choice, take action, or decide not to act. This may include product summaries, renewal letters, fee explanations, digital warnings, policy summaries and customer service scripts.

Look for signs that the information may not be working well. For example:

A practical first step is to choose one document or journey where customers often need help. Check whether the customer can see the main point, understand the consequence, and know what to do next.

If the answer is unclear, the information needs more work.

Dima Yarovinsky: Gallery 3 — Dima Yarovinsky-Yahel

Frances Gordon is the UK Ambassador for PLAIN, the Plain Language Association International, and an expert contributor to the British Standards Institution on the development of plain-language standards. She specialises in clear communication for complex and regulated environments, with a focus on accessibility and financial inclusion. Her work helps organisations make complex information clearer and easier to trust. She is Director of Narratology.

See Frances Gordon’s LinkedIn profile or visit the Narratology website.