A classic problem
A classic comprehensibility problem in Swedish texts from public authorities regards sentence length. Sentences tend to be too long and too complex with many subordinate clauses, long noun phrases and many insertions. There has been some improvement even in this respect, but there is still room for more!

Lack of adaptation to the reader
The main comprehensibility problems in today's texts from public authorities lie neither in syntax nor vocabulary but in the lack of adaptation to the reader, in content as well as in text structure. The content of the texts is often criticised for not being relevant or not put in layman's terms. When it comes to text structure, the texts often lack meta-comments, which could guide the reader through the text. Headings and sub-headings tend not to be informative enough; in some cases they are even misleading.

Enhance the focus on readers
To sum up, the most important problem for future plain language work must be to enhance the focus on the reader. Public authority writers must know the importance of adaptation and be careful not only in their choice of information and vocabulary, but also in the structuring of texts. Such efforts seem to be the most effective way to achieve even more comprehensible texts.

The Plain Language Test
Measure comprehensibility?
Based on the evaluation, Catharina Nyström, PhD, from Uppsala University, developed a check list to be used by writers at the authorities. The check list consists of 35 questions divided under five headings, concerning different aspects of the text: adaptation to the needs of the reader, message, text structure and textual cohesion, syntax and words and phrases.

These questions are all crucial to the comprehensibility of the text. This checklist was developed into an interactive web test in 2002.