Suggestions for reviewing and revising communications

Preliminary steps

1. Contact colleagues in other tribunals or other fields to see what they have discovered about their clients and learn from their experience.
2. Perhaps conduct a client survey to find out how they want to receive information.

Review stage

3. Evaluate the literacy level of your current communications:
   • written and spoken
   • information documents and forms
   • videos and advertisements
   • Internet sites
   • signage, instructions, processes that rely on written material
4. Review the documents a client must fill in.
5. Review document design.
6. Review oral communication and processes that rely on oral communications.
7. Evaluate the office set-up for privacy and user-friendliness for those with low literacy skills.
8. Determine if it is only a “reading” issue or if it is also a comprehension issue.

Revision stage

9. Revise material using plain language.
10. Simplify document design.
11. Simplify and reduce the number the documents a client must fill in wherever possible.
12. Simplify signage in office and use graphics wherever possible.
13. Develop videos and audiotapes to explain processes.
14. Develop a glossary of most frequently used terms with their plain language alternatives.