How an easy-to-read text is actually made

Commissioning easy-to-read for the first time is usually where the plan meets the timeline. The process has five steps and only the first one looks like writing.

Step 1: decide what the reader needs to do

Before anything is rewritten, someone has to answer a question the source document does not answer: what does the reader need to be able to do after reading this? Apply for something, refuse something, attend something, complain about something.

Everything that does not serve that decision comes out. This is the step that produces the reduction described on our page comparing plain language and easy-to-read, and it needs someone with authority over the content, not just over the wording. A translator cannot decide that a legal caveat is not needed.

Typical effort: half a day for a short document, and a meeting with the content owner.

Step 2: write the draft

Now the rules from the European standards apply: everyday words, one idea per sentence, active voice, direct address, difficult words explained where they appear.

The hardest part is consistency. Ordinary writing varies vocabulary to avoid repetition; easy-to-read requires the opposite. If the source says “application”, “request” and “submission” for the same thing, the easy-to-read version picks one and uses it every time.

Typical effort: one to two days for a document of eight to twelve easy-to-read pages, which corresponds to perhaps three or four pages of ordinary text.

Step 3: lay it out

Layout is part of the method, not decoration. Large sans-serif type, left aligned, one sentence per line where the sentence fits, generous spacing, images beside the text they belong to.

The images are the part that goes wrong most often. A stock photograph chosen for atmosphere adds nothing and can mislead. The image has to depict the specific thing the sentence is about. Established symbol sets exist for this and are usually a better answer than photography.

Typical effort: half a day, plus image sourcing.

Step 4: the review group

The draft goes to a group of people with intellectual disabilities who read it and say what they did not understand. This is the validation step and it is not optional in the European method.

A working session usually involves three to six readers and a facilitator, runs one to two hours, and produces concrete changes: this word, this sentence, this image, this order. The output is a list, not an approval.

This step has a lead time, because review groups are booked. Plan two to three weeks between finished draft and session, not two days.

Step 5: rework and publish

The feedback is applied. Significant rewrites go back for a second look. Only then does the document carry the easy-to-read logo.

The shortcuts and what they cost

Skipping the review group. The most common shortcut, because it is the only step with an external dependency. The result is a document that looks like easy-to-read and has never been read by the audience. If the budget will not carry a review group, the honest move is to publish it as plain language without the logo.

Machine translation into easy-to-read. Language models produce fluent simplified text quickly and get the vocabulary rules roughly right. What they cannot do is step 1, because that is a content decision, or step 4, because that is a person. Used as a drafting aid inside a process that keeps both, they save real time. Used as the process, they produce confident text that has never been checked against a reader.

Reusing an easy-to-read version after the source changes. Easy-to-read versions go stale silently, because nobody reads them in the review that follows a policy change. Tie the easy-to-read version to the source document in whatever system tracks reviews.