Plain language and clear communication on the transparency portal: what we have done and where we are going
El transparency portal is a standard solution in the territory with more than 1280 portals available, used intensively in the local world. It is a benchmark used by 95% of Catalan councils.
What have we done in plain language and clear communication on the transparency portal?
Period 2015-2017
In 2015, a first version of the transparency portal was made available to the local world to help organizations comply with the obligations of transparency law 19/14.
This initial portal had standard items such as: budgets, plenary minutes and personnel calls. The first two years were for the consolidation of the service, the automations were analyzed and it was deployed in the territory.
In 2017, a first clear language and data automation project was carried out. The descriptions of the transparency items were revised to write them from the perspective of plain language. An example of this review is the description associated with the item "Cartipàs: political organization".
Image 1: detail of the item "Cartipàs: political organization" with the brief description
Period 2018-2020
Between 2018 and 2019, work was done on the automation of the data at source to promote active advertising in a simple way, as well as the updating of the portals. Progress was made, for example, in the first automation of data associated with public procurement, collaboration agreements or subsidies and aid.
In 2020 they were deployed two new modulesin aspects of political organization, and economic indicators of the town councils, areas highly consulted by citizens.
As for the economic indicators improvements have been applied to present the data more clearly, updated and with territorial comparison:
Image 4: Example of detail of the economic indicators available for an entity from 2020. You only need to activate the display from the editing environment.
The political organization module and economic indicators now show data from more clear, complete, visual and standardized way.
Period 2021-2023
The first two years after the release of the new modules (2021 and 2022) passed especially for the consolidation works of the same, as well as search for new automations in origin. At the same time, aspects associated with data protection and the permanence of automatic data on the portals were worked on.
In 2023, progress was made in clear language improvements, mainly aimed at improving portal items, making them clearer, comprehensible, with dynamic graphics and automatic data, to enhance its updating.
New dynamic graphics associated with recruitment, grants or collaboration agreements were published, which made it possible to replace "excel" type tables with figures.
Image 5: example of details of the historical contracts available for a body in dynamic graphic format
Transparency Portal 2024. Where are we and what will we do?
During the year 2024 the plain language has become a key element. we are analyzing the different items of transparency to make them clearer and closer and we have started the study of the groups of items most visited by citizens.
For example, in the treatment, we address ourselves in the second person singular: it generates a feeling of greater proximity and the language is more direct and unequivocal. Regarding the titles, we are working on making them more specific: this must allow a broad vision that reduces the distance with the user, who will decide how far he wants to go deeper and the degree of complexity he needs. We see it as important to go from the generic to the detailed and from the interpretable to the unequivocal.
For the item "Senior positions, managerial staff and occasional positions", the works propose shortening the title to "Positions and managerial staff" and giving more information in the description. Talking about senior positions or occasional positions introduces terminology and concepts that are common in the administrative context but not well internalized by the general user. On the contrary, talking about positions and managerial staff allows the concepts of any type of company or organization to be transferred to much more transversal environments, applicable to the generic work context and internalized by the general population.
All these proposals for improvement on existing items will be transferred during the first quarter of 2025 to the transparency work group of the Network of Open Governments of Catalonia, to be able to debate and implement them if there is consensus.
These modifications will allow us to improve the portal from a design point of view, plain language and clear communication towards the public.
