{"id":3771,"date":"2012-03-30T12:36:15","date_gmt":"2012-03-30T01:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/?p=3771"},"modified":"2012-03-28T13:42:46","modified_gmt":"2012-03-28T02:42:46","slug":"useful-policies-are-short","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/2012\/03\/useful-policies-are-short\/","title":{"rendered":"Useful policies are short"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you take the time to prepare a policy or procedure<\/a>,then you may as well make it accessible to people, right?<\/p>\n

\"Online<\/a>I just read a blog post discussing how the average internet user could spend 76 business days a year reading privacy policies<\/a> that affect them. 76 days!<\/p>\n

That is based on the average policy having 2,514 words. Which is a lot of words for a policy that basically needs to say ‘we will only give your information to Fred under these circumstances’.<\/p>\n

And it is an average. Some places have very short privacy policies (for example, if you subscribe to my newsletter<\/a> you will see a 34 word policy!) so that must mean other places have extremely long policies.<\/p>\n

So next time you write or update a policy, keep it as short as possible by<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. using simple words<\/a> as much as possible\u00a0so it is easy to understand<\/li>\n
  2. avoiding legalese<\/a> so it makes sense to everyone and doesn’t look intimidating<\/li>\n
  3. think about your reader – what do they want to know and expect to see?<\/li>\n
  4. use an active voice as it is generally shorter than a passive version of the same sentence<\/li>\n
  5. use bullet points and sub-headings to organise the policy – this is easier to read, often means less repetition is necessary and sentences don’t need to be so complex.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Legally, you may be covered by providing a policy even if people don’t bother reading it (how often do you read the policies you agree to online?) but I wouldn’t be comfortable with including unexpected details that could hurt people later. That is, the legal issue is not always the moral one so I prefer policies people are more likely to read.<\/p>\n

    As a business owner, do you just want to protect yourself or do you want people to properly understand your policies?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    If you take the time to prepare a policy or procedure,then you may as well make it accessible to people, right? I just read a blog post discussing how the average internet user could spend 76 business days a year reading privacy policies that affect them. 76 days! That is based on the average policy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1425],"tags":[304,1486,1484,198],"class_list":["post-3771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-communications","tag-effective","tag-legally","tag-policy","tag-short"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t