I’m inspired by the idea of a jargon workshop. I heard this term for the first time while watching recordings from the “I understand” seminar held last spring. Of particular interest was the presentation by Mirva Kipinoinen, who spoke about a revision of the Tukes website.
The jargon workshop was one approach taken to redo the site’s language. During the workshop, experts collected difficult expressions and developed alternatives for them. They went so far as to blacklist certain terms and suggest other expressions for authors to use.
I really like the workshop method because it is so concrete and and because it requires looking at the texts in detail. General rules by themselves do not improve readability. Discussions in workshops like this encourage experts to read and evaluate their own written work in a new way.
In the Tukes plain language project I found another sound principle: don’t simply reuse legal language on the website. What Tukes does is to give guidance in plain language and provide links to the related regulations and laws.