If you’ve ever tried to make a piece of information truly clear for someone with cognitive or language processing challenges, you’ll know it’s not as simple as ‘making it shorter’ or ‘using plain English’.

We recently read the brilliant Design in Government blog post “Easy read is hard to get right”, and we honestly couldn’t agree more.

At IC Works, we specialise in turning complex documents into Easy Read versions. The Easy Read documents are designed to be clear, structured, and accessible for people with learning disabilities, cognitive impairments, or lower literacy levels.

When organizations create Easy Read documents, they often assume that simply simplifying the text—shorter sentences, clearer words, and added images—makes the information accessible. But time and time again, we see well-meaning attempts at simplification that still confuse people. Why?

It's been a busy month or so at Easy Read Towers with Easy Read projects for Hillingdon Council and West Berkshire Council.

We were recently asked by Centro, the West Midlands public transport provider, to produce a print-ready Easy Read application form for their Disability Pass.

Working with Jayne Carter and her daughter Nikki. we produced an Easy Read version of several tender documents.