Making letters and leaflets easier to read
AI is good at plain English and useful for a first pass at easy read. It cannot do the part that makes easy read work, which is testing it with the people who use it.
Our rating
Good to try
Low risk and useful today, with sensible checks.
What it looks like
Before
We are writing to inform you that, owing to a revision of our scheduling arrangements, visits may be subject to alteration during the forthcoming holiday period.
With AI
Over the holidays, your visit times might change. We will tell you before they do.
An invented example.
Most letters that care organisations send are written in the language of the organisation rather than the language of the reader. This is rarely deliberate. It is what happens when a letter is drafted by someone who deals with scheduling arrangements all day.
AI is genuinely good at this particular problem.
Where it helps
Plain English, immediately. Give it a dense paragraph and ask for it at a reading age of nine, and you get something noticeably better. The example above is typical rather than flattering.
Shorter sentences. One idea per sentence is the single biggest improvement available to most organisational writing, and tools do it reliably.
Removing sector language. “Service user”, “care package”, “domiciliary”, “assessment outcome” — all invisible to people inside the sector and opaque outside it.
A first pass at easy read. Short sentences, one idea at a time, active voice, no metaphors. That gets you to a reasonable starting draft.
Translation between audiences. The same information for the person, for a family member, and for a professional.
What it cannot do
It cannot do easy read properly. Real easy read is words, images, layout, spacing and — crucially — testing with people who use it. AI does the words. It does not choose the picture, lay out the page, or tell you whether a reader understood.
A document with simple words and no images, in a dense block, is not easy read. It is plain English, which is worth having, but calling it easy read overstates what you have done.
It cannot tell you whether it worked. This is the whole point of the method. Easy read is tested with readers. If you have people who use your service willing to look at a draft and say what is confusing, that is worth more than any tool.
The risk: meaning goes missing
Simplification is lossy, and what it loses is often the conditional.
- “Visits may be subject to alteration” → “Your visits will change”. Different, and wrong.
- “You can ask us to review this decision within 28 days” → “You can ask us to look at this again”. The deadline has gone, and the deadline is the reader’s right.
- “We will contact you if the assessment identifies further needs” → “We will contact you”. A promise has been created.
Rights, deadlines, conditions and negatives are where this happens. When you check a simplified draft, check those specifically rather than reading for tone.
A method that works
- Write the letter normally, or start from your existing one.
- Ask for it in plain English at around reading age nine.
- Check every right, deadline, condition and “may” or “might” against the original.
- Read it aloud. Anything you stumble over needs changing.
- Show it to someone who uses your service. Ask what it means, not whether it is clear.
- For genuine easy read, add images and layout, and test it properly.
One thing worth doing
Take the three letters you send most often. Rewrite them once, properly, using the method above.
Those three letters will be read by more people than everything else you write, and unlike most improvement work it stays done.
If one of them is the letter telling people you use AI, we have a template for that.