How to make church policies and long updates easier to read
TL;DR
Write headings that tell readers what has changed, who it affects and what they need to do. Make them easy to scan and keep each heading close to the text it introduces.
Nobody reads the important stuff
Today I want to talk about the long, important things you send that almost nobody reads properly.
The ones with something at stake, that you've probably spent a long time writing.
The safeguarding policy.
The vision document.
The PCC update.
The sensitive update email.
The problem with these is that they often require careful wording and end up being quite tedious to read - not ideal when it comes to getting people to actually engage with them
So let's talk about.
Fair warning: a bit of research first.
How readers scan headings in long church documents
Researchers can track where a person’s eyes move across a screen. When they do that on long, text-heavy pages, one pattern keeps appearing.
Eyes go to the headings. They bounce from one heading to the next, skipping most of the paragraphs, and only stop to read when a heading suggests the bit underneath is worth it.
It’s called the layer-cake pattern.
It’s about the most reliable way a busy person can get information out of a page without having to read it word for word.
The trouble is what happens when there are no headings to scan (or bad headings)
People don’t slow down and read properly instead.
They scan anyway, drifting down the left-hand side, picking up fragments. They come away with almost nothing, and they think they’ve read it.
Now the problem is that when it comes to something like a safeguarding update, getting the thing actually read is vital. We don't want it to feel like hard work!
But there is a solution...
Write headings that explain the message and required action
Someone should be able to read only your headings and still know what the document says and what it wants from them.
Most church documents fail that straight away, because the headings describe the shape of the document rather than anything in it.
“Introduction”
“Background”
“Policy Statement”
“Implementation”
“Conclusion”
None of that tells anybody anything.
Compare:
“What’s changed?”
“Who this applies to”
“What you need to do”
“By when”
“Who to ask if you’re not sure”
Same information underneath. But now I have a far better idea of what's going on in each section.
And crucially, as a reader that description helps to attract me into parts of the document.
Improve headings in policies and long church emails
Your policies and documents. Write each heading as the question the paragraph is answering. Not “Implementation”, but “What you need to do”.
Your long emails. The same thing applies. If an email runs past three or four paragraphs, it needs headings. A lot of church emails are really documents in disguise, sent as one unbroken wall of text.
How the headings look. Make them clearly bolder or bigger than the body text, and keep them tight to the paragraph they belong to. But don’t make them so loud they look like adverts, because people have learned to skip anything that resembles a promotion.
Make the personal. Write your headings addressed to the individual. "What this means for you". People are far more likely to read information that they think effects them, than a vague policy change.