Plain language or easy-to-read? They are not the same thing
Plain language and easy-to-read have different audiences, different rules and different costs. Choosing the wrong one wastes the budget and misses the reader.
Easy-to-readPublished
These two terms get used as synonyms in briefs, and the result is a document that satisfies neither audience. They are separate registers with separate rules.
The short version
| Plain language | Easy-to-read | |
|---|---|---|
| Audience | The general public, including people reading in a second language or under time pressure | People with intellectual disabilities, and others who need substantial simplification |
| Goal | Find, understand and use the information at first reading | Read and understand the information independently |
| Layout | Normal document layout | Prescribed: large type, one sentence per line, supporting images |
| Content | Complete | Reduced to what the reader needs to act |
| Review | Usability testing, optional | Review by people with intellectual disabilities, mandatory |
| Reference | ISO 24495-1 | European easy-to-read rules, national rulebooks |
Why the difference matters in a brief
The most common failure is asking for easy-to-read and specifying the content requirements of plain language. Easy-to-read reduces. A twelve-page terms document does not become an easy-to-read twelve-page document; it becomes a shorter document that tells the reader the things they need in order to decide and act, with a pointer to the full version.
If you cannot accept the reduction, you do not want easy-to-read. You want plain language, which keeps the content complete and rewrites it to be clear. That is a legitimate and often better answer, and it is cheaper.
The second common failure runs the other way: commissioning plain language, then adding the easy-to-read logo. The logo is tied to the validation step described in the European rules. Using it on unvalidated text misrepresents the document to exactly the readers who rely on that mark.
Where each one is required
Plain language has moved from good practice to obligation in several places. Consumer information rules across the EU routinely require terms to be clear and comprehensible, and the European Accessibility Act requires that information about a service be understandable, not exceeding a level of complexity superior to what is described in the standards. That is a plain language requirement in substance.
Easy-to-read is required much more narrowly, usually where a specific national rule or a public sector commitment applies: election information, social services information, health decisions, and material produced by disability organisations themselves.
Doing both
For most public-facing information, the answer is a layered set rather than a choice.
The main document is written in plain language, because that improves it for everyone. A separate easy-to-read version covers the decisions the reader has to make and links back to the full text. The two are published together and the easy-to-read version is findable from the main page, not buried in a downloads section.
That structure also works better technically. The easy-to-read version becomes a real page rather than a PDF, which means it is available to screen readers and to reading support tools without the extra step that a document download imposes.