Writing in Simple English and Reduce Time-to-comprehension

I have always been interested in how to communicate effectively with individuals whose first language is not English. It is obvious English is the default language of communication for most things, and nearly all things technical.

The most important factor is to reduce the Time-To-Comprehension by a reader. The aim is to help a reader understand exactly what I am trying to communicate, in the shortest possible time. Making things easy to understand is a quality of any great communicator.

In my opinion, following these rules will reduce Time-To-Comprehension

1. Use short sentences
2. Use bullet points - sometimes this is easier to read and understand than a long sentence
3. Avoid jargon. You can use jargon, abbreviations or acronyms as long as you give a definition to the term(s)
4. Use simple English

The Plain English Campaign website has excellent resources on how you can make your English writing simpler and easier to comprehend.