ABSTRACT
Citizens are faced with a range of written regulatory information in everyday life, but oen they struggle to read all of it or, indeed, fully understand it (Kimble 2012; Shuy 1998). According to the principles of good governance, regulatory information should be accessible and written in a style that can be understood by the public (Cheek 2011; Foucault 1991; Kimble 2012). This chapter examines the relationship between the design of public information documents produced by Australian public sector organizations and readers’ perceptions of their readability and usability. This relationship between writers, readers, and the text is described from a linguistic perspective, with discourse and text analysis providing an understanding of information design. Information design is taken in its broadest context, and refers to the intricate blending of content structure, appropriate wording and visual formatting, used to convey messages to the audience.
