Environment Agency forms [page 1/2]

Creating guidance, tools and a process to enable the creation of clear, usable and consistent forms

Tasks included

• Research/copy writing
• Clear language
• Typography/graphic design

What was needed

With the bringing together of disparate environmental authorities under the Environment Agency umbrella, EA wanted to produce clear, standard documents in the corporate style. A project was devised to establish a design and language approach as well as management strategies within the Agency. A detailed analysis of existing forms would show the scale of use and consequent cost implications on revenues and production costs.

Our approach

We undertook the following tasks:

• Conducted customer surveys to find out problems with existing forms.
• With the Agency, set up an internal management procedure using gatekeepers and form owners to be responsible for individual form ownership and monitoring of forms within Agency functions to ensure consistency.
• Workshops set up to raise awareness for Agency staff.
• Wrote or edited text using clear language in a structured sequence to minimise customer resistance to the process of form filling.
• Used design to simplify and order information in logical, clearly defined groups.

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