Administrative procedures for migrants on the Web: from plain language towards a visual approach

Currently Public Administration in Italy works in an intercultural context, given that immigration is growing and an increasing percentage of users who interact with the public offices are foreign nationals. For this reason, it's important that public institutions learn to communicate with all their users in an effective and appropriate way, to ensure all citizens the right to information. In fact, in the Italian legal system, according to the constitutional jurisprudence, the concept of "citizenship" should not be understood in a formal sense but in the substantial one; therefore fundamental rights granted to citizens must be recognized also to non-Italian citizens residing in our country, including therefore the right to be informed by Public Administration. To inform citizens about their rights and duties it is necessary to use the right type of language, especially in relation to clarity and comprehensibility. In addition, public communication takes place almost exclusively through the Web and the language used should be appropriate to this means of communication. To this end, the aim of this research was to develop a method to support public officers in simplifying written information content about administrative procedures relating to immigration.