Alan Siegel Helps Consumers Simplify Legal Documents
From tax forms to credit card agreements, documents are packed with jargon. One branding expert says it's time to ditch legalese and simplify business forms.
Passport applications. Tax forms. Bills and other legislation. Credit card contracts. Terms of service. Do all of these documents make you cringe? Of course they do, because they're obtuse forms crammed with legalese and other jargon that are difficult to parse, visually and mentally.
Branding and business communications expert Alan Seigel says the age of incomprehensibly long paperwork must come to an end.
If you're a veteran coming back from Iraq or Vietnam you face a blizzard of paperwork to get your benefits. If you're trying to get a small business loan, you face a blizzard of paperwork.
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He says it's time to implement simple, sensible redesigns - in plain English - to help make legal paperwork intelligible to average folks.
Here's Seigel making his case in under six minutes in this Tedtalk2010
Still interested? Checkout Seigel's Simplified Credit Card Agreement, produced in 2009 by his branding firm, Seigel+Gale. The form was designed in response to President Obama's call to credit card companies for agreements consumers "don't need a law degree or a magnifying glass to understand."
About the Author
Cavakia is a Miami based fitness trainer, anarchist, and promoter of wellness and natural law principles. Contact him at cavakia@gmail.com if you want to transform your body in 12 weeks or less.
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