Monday Copywriting Tip #25: Write in the Language of Your Readers

The other day, while I was lining up to check in for a flight at Dorval airport in Montreal, I read one of the posters announcing the improvements they had made during some recent rennovations.

One line in particular caught my attention:

"The addition of more user-friendly space"

Do you know what that means? I certainly don't. Even as someone who is constantly exposed in my professional life to the term 'user-friendly', I always find it's meaning vague.

User-friendly space at an airport? It's meaningless to me, and even more so to the millions of people who never come across the phrase in their professional and daily lives.

I can't imagine what the writer was thinking.

Whatever you are writing, whether for the web or an airport poster, write in the langauge and within the experience of the people who are going to read it.

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