ISO 24495 plain language training

Write clear, accessible content that helps you to comply with regulations

This plain-language training helps your team write content that readers can find, understand, and use. On this page, you’ll find an overview. As always, you can choose what to focus on in your own tailored course.

Who this plain-language training is for

This course is for teams who write content that affects real decisions and real risk.
Typical participants include:

Legal, compliance and policy teams
Product and UX writing teams
Content, marketing and communications teams
Customer support and operations teams
Public sector and regulated industries

You can bring your own documents, user journeys, or product screens. We apply the standards to your real content, not generic examples.

What you will learn

By the end of the training, your team will be able to:

Explain the key plain-language principles in ISO 24495 and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, and how they relate to your own regulatory framework
Assess whether a document or journey meets the standard for plain language
Rewrite complex content in clear, usable language
Design a content workflow that supports plain language at scale
Understand where AI tools can help, and where they cannot

Session 1: Laws, regulations and accessibility standards

The first session gives a no-nonsense overview of the standards that matter for content.

We cover:

ISO 24495 plain language standards
Accessibility guidelines that affect content design and wording
Inclusion and inclusive design principles
Laws and regulations that apply in your country or sector

We map the standards to your risk areas, such as consent, contracts, terms, or customer journeys.

Session 2: ISO 24495 in depth

The second session is the most strategic part of our training. It looks at the full content workflow, including:

Identifying your readers and their context
Choosing the right content format and channel
Structuring information so people can easily find the information they need
Drafting, reviewing and testing with real users

We apply each principle to your priority content. This can include UX content, legal content, policy, product pages, or customer support content.

Session 3: Writing rules and accessibility guidelines

The third session zooms in on practical writing rules. We cover:

Heading hierarchy, structure and syntax
Choosing familiar words
Dealing with jargon and legal terms of art
Sentence length, active voice, and sentence complexity
Correct and careful use of negatives
When and how to use contractions
How to write and structure bullet points
How to write and place links
Inclusive and respectful language

You leave with checklists and examples you can reuse in your own style guides.

Optional session: UX writing and product microcopy

This optional session is useful for teams working on apps and online services.

We cover:

Forms and field labels that are clear and unambiguous
Placeholder text and help text that support, not confuse
Support messages that set expectations
When and how to write alternative text for images

We can run this as a live critique of your existing flows and screens.

Final session: workflow and AI

In the final session, we focus on how to make plain language stick in your organisation.

We look at:

Roles and responsibilities in a content workflow
How to embed plain language checks into review processes
How to combine legal, risk and UX perspectives
Where AI tools can safely support drafting and review
Where you should avoid AI and keep human judgement

You leave with a realistic plan for changing how your team writes.

Outcomes for your organisation

After this training, your organisation will be better able to:

Design and review customer communications that support consumer outcomes in regulations
Show how key risks, costs and benefits are explained in a way typical customers can understand
Identify content that may cause foreseeable harm because it is unclear, misleading or incomplete
Use structured checklists when approving documents, journeys and screens that carry regulatory or conduct risk
Integrate plain language, accessibility and inclusion into product and service governance
Define simple metrics and feedback loops so you can monitor how communications affect customer outcomes
Document your approach to plain language as part of your wider Consumer Duty and conduct-risk framework

This training does not guarantee compliance with any law or regulation. It gives your teams the skills, tools and shared language to improve customer communications and support better regulatory outcomes.

FAQs about plain-language training

What is ISO 24495 plain language?

ISO 24495 is an international standard for plain language. It sets out principles, a checklist and a workflow to help you create content that readers can find, understand and use. This training shows your team how to apply those principles to your own documents and journeys.

Which teams is the training for?

The training works best for cross-functional groups. For example legal and compliance, product and UX writing, content and marketing, customer support, and risk or operations. We can run separate cohorts for different teams or mixed groups working on the same customer journeys.

Do you tailor the training to our sector and jurisdiction?

Yes. Before the course we ask about your products, target markets, key risks and regulatory environment. We can focus on specific regimes, such as Consumer Duty in the UK, and align examples to your sector, such as banking, insurance, pensions, utilities or public sector services.

Can we use our own documents, journeys and screens in the training?

Yes. We encourage you to bring real examples such as terms and conditions, letters, emails, web pages, in-app flows or forms. We use these to apply ISO 24495, WCAG and other accessibility guidance to the content that matters most to your customers and regulators.

Is the training online or in person?

We offer online workshops and in-person sessions in the UK and South Africa. For global teams, we can design a remote programme that works across time zones, using your own collaboration tools where possible.

How does plain-language training support Consumer Duty and other regulations?

The course focuses on how you design and test customer communications so people can understand your products, risks, costs and choices. This supports the Consumer Duty consumer understanding outcome and helps you reduce foreseeable harm caused by unclear information. It does not replace legal advice or your internal compliance work.

Can this training form part of our Consumer Duty evidence?

Training alone will not prove Consumer Duty compliance. It can however form part of your evidence that you are improving customer communications, building staff capability and designing better content workflows. We can help you define simple measures to track changes in customer outcomes linked to communications.