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In the complex world of technical documentation, the pursuit of clarity is paramount. Yet, many still perceive “simplified” language as a reduction in sophistication. However, for those familiar with ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English (STE), its precisely defined grammar—particularly the constrained use of verb tenses—is not a limitation, but a powerful feature designed to eliminate ambiguity and minimise errors.

At the heart of STE’s effectiveness is its disciplined approach to verb tenses. Unlike the vast array of options in general English, STE limits writers to a specific, unambiguous set: Present Tense, Past Tense, Infinitive, Future Tense, Past Participle (used as an adjective), and the Imperative. This intentional restriction drives immense benefits across an organisation, impacting everything from operational efficiency to strategic communication.

Precision for the Front Lines: How Limited Tenses Empower Technicians and Engineers

For the individuals directly interacting with products, machinery, and complex systems—your technicians and engineers—the clarity afforded by STE’s simplified tenses is transformative. When every instruction must be perfectly understood, ambiguity can lead to costly errors, safety hazards, and downtime.

• Reduces Ambiguity: Complex or rarely used tenses in general English can lead to different interpretations, especially for non-native English speakers. By using simpler, direct tenses, STE ensures that instructions in maintenance manuals, operational procedures, and troubleshooting guides are understood universally and unequivocally. “PRESS THE START BUTTON” leaves no room for doubt about the action or its timing.
• Faster Comprehension: Less cognitive load means quicker understanding. Engineers and technicians can rapidly grasp instructions without needing to parse intricate grammatical structures, leading to more efficient task execution.
• Minimises Operational Mistakes: Clear, unambiguous commands directly translate to fewer errors in the field. This is critical in safety-sensitive industries, where a single misinterpretation can have severe consequences. Simplified tenses mean the intent of the author is preserved, every time.
• Improved Efficiency: Time spent deciphering poorly written documents is time wasted. STE’s simplified tenses enable a smooth workflow, allowing technical staff to focus on their core tasks rather than struggling with linguistic complexities.

Elevating Insights: STE in White Papers and Technical Reports 

There’s a common misconception that simplification equates to “dumbing down” content, particularly in high-level documents like white papers and technical reports where managers seek sophistication. However, the true sophistication in such documents lies in precision, conciseness, and impactful clarity, not linguistic embellishment. STE’s principles, including its tense limitations, enhance these qualities.

• Enhanced Precision: By advocating for direct statements and avoiding vague phrasing, STE encourages writers to express technical concepts with utmost accuracy. This avoids misinterpretation of data, findings, or recommendations. A report written in STE is lean, impactful, and analytically rigorous, free of unnecessary complexity.
• Improved Readability for Decision-Makers: Managers and executives are busy. They need to quickly extract key insights and make informed decisions. Reports that are direct, factual, and easy to consume—thanks to simplified tenses and consistent vocabulary—facilitate faster understanding, leading to more timely and effective strategic choices.
• Stronger Argumentation: When ideas are presented with unambiguous language, arguments become more compelling and defensible. The focus shifts from deciphering the writing style to understanding the presented facts and analysis.
• Increased Credibility: Documents free from grammatical slips, awkward phrasing, or linguistic ambiguities inherently appear more authoritative and trustworthy. This bolsters the credibility of the presented technical concepts and the expertise of the authors.

Broadening Reach: The Usefulness of STE in Marketing and Corporate Communication

While STE is a controlled language for technical documentation, its underlying principles of clarity, conciseness, and consistent messaging are invaluable in broader communication contexts for technical industries and businesses. Applying STE’s ethos to marketing and corporate communications can significantly enhance their effectiveness.

• Marketing & Product Communication: For technical products, clearly articulating features and benefits to a diverse audience (both technical and non-technical) is crucial. Simplified language in marketing materials, product descriptions, and user guides ensures that the value proposition is immediately understood, reducing customer support queries and increasing user adoption.
• Consistent Brand Voice: Adopting a “simplified English” approach, informed by STE principles, ensures a consistent and approachable voice across all internal and external communications. This is particularly important for global companies where messaging can get diluted or misinterpreted across different regions and languages.
• Enhanced Internal Communication: From HR policies to inter-departmental memos and internal training materials, applying principles of clarity and conciseness ensures that all employees—regardless of their primary language or technical background—understand critical information, fostering a more efficient and cohesive workforce.

The Verdict: Strategic Simplicity for a Complex World

The strength of ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English lies not in dumbing down complex ideas, but in stripping away linguistic barriers that hinder comprehension and introduce errors. Its disciplined approach to verb tenses is a prime example of how structured simplification leads to profound gains in clarity, accuracy, and efficiency across an entire organisation. From the factory floor to the boardroom, and across your marketing efforts, leveraging STE is a strategic investment that pays dividends in reduced costs, improved safety, and enhanced global reach.

Ready to unlock the full potential of your organisation’s knowledge assets? Explore Shufrans Techdocs worldwide online instructor-led training sessions. We equip your professionals with the practical skills to implement STE, enabling them to create precise, compliant, and highly effective documentation. Plus, you’ll benefit from 120 days of post-training support to ensure lasting success.

Ready to explore how human expertise and strategic frameworks like STE can elevate your technical communication? Connect with Shufrans TechDocs today.

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From a rigorous specification to a global international standard: ASD-STE100’s evolution with Issue 9 marks a new era for technical communication.

On January 15, 2025, ASD-STE100 took a significant leap forward with the release of Issue 9. This latest version marks a crucial evolution, formally transitioning STE from a mere specification into a full-fledged international standard. This designation change underscores its broader applicability and reinforces its global relevance in technical communication.

While Issue 9 doesn’t introduce entirely new writing rules, its focus has been on comprehensive refinement and modernisation.

Refined Rules for Greater Clarity

One of the primary areas of update lies in the existing writing rules. 31 out of the 53 writing rules have undergone revisions in their wording. These tweaks aim to improve clarity and ease of application, directly reflecting current best practices within technical communication. The goal is to make the standard even more intuitive for authors to follow.

An Updated, Smarter Dictionary

The STE dictionary, a cornerstone of the standard, also received a substantial overhaul. A staggering 555 entries – encompassing words, definitions, and examples – were updated. These revisions ensure the dictionary aligns with the latest linguistic and technical conventions, maintaining accuracy and relevance across a wide range of industries.

Aligning Terminology with Global Standards

Issue 9 placed a significant emphasis on modernising the meta-terminology within STE itself. This review focused on streamlining legacy classifications and aligning them with international terminological frameworks. For instance, terms like “technical name” and “technical verb” from previous issues have been reclassified as “technical noun” and “technical verb (term)”, respectively. This update directly links STE to ISO 1087-1:2019, making the standard more consistent with broader linguistic principles. Additionally, subject field classifications were refined, and new categories (such as “Law and regulations” and “Animals, plants, and other life forms”) were introduced under rules like Rule 1.5 and 1.12 to cater to an expanding range of content.

A User-Centric Approach

A key driving force behind these updates was the aim to improve usability for technical authors. Recognising that most authors are not linguists, the standard’s developers prioritised balancing terminological precision with practicality. This ensures that STE remains straightforward and accessible, enabling authors to apply it effectively without unnecessary complexity.

A Collaborative Effort

Issue 9 is the culmination of extensive collaboration. Its development involved the ASD Simplified Technical English Management Group (STEMG), academic experts, and STE users from around the world. A two-month global feedback period was integral to gathering diverse insights, ensuring the final standard is robust and truly reflective of industry needs.

In essence, ASD-STE100 Issue 9 solidifies the standard’s position by clarifying and modernising its existing framework. By enhancing its global standing and practical applicability without introducing entirely new rules, it focuses instead on refinement and alignment with modern terminological practices, ensuring STE remains a powerful tool for clear and precise communication.

Ready to Master ASD-STE100 Issue 9?

Understanding the updates in Issue 9 is crucial for ensuring your documentation remains compliant, clear, and efficient. Our tailored ASD-STE100 training programmes are designed to equip your team with the practical skills needed to implement these latest standards effectively.

Learn more about our upcoming training sessions and secure your spot today!

Understanding the Disconnect Between Universal Benefit and Varied Adoption

In the world of technical communication, few standards offer the promise of clarity, precision, and efficiency quite like ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English. It’s a meticulously crafted set of writing rules and a controlled vocabulary designed to eliminate ambiguity, streamline translation, and enhance comprehension across diverse audiences, especially in high-stakes, high-reliability sectors.

Logically, one would assume such a universally beneficial standard would be embraced by all. Yet, here’s an unpopular opinion that many in the field can quietly attest to: ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English is for everyone, but not everyone is for STE.

The inherent benefits of STE for clear communication are undeniable. Its principles lead to documentation that is easier to read, quicker to write, and significantly more cost-effective to translate. These advantages are crucial in industries where a single misinterpretation can lead to operational errors, safety incidents, or costly rework.

So, if STE offers such clear advantages, why isn’t its adoption universal? This often stems from a fundamental disconnect: while the objective benefits are clear, the willingness or capacity of individuals and organisations to fully embrace and implement STE varies greatly. This reluctance speaks to several underlying factors:

The Comfort Zone of Existing Practices

For many, the current way of doing things, even if inefficient, is familiar and comfortable. Changing established writing habits and documentation workflows requires effort, time, and a shift in mindset. The perceived disruption of adopting a new standard can outweigh the perceived benefits, especially if the current inefficiencies are not explicitly measured or understood. “We’ve always done it this way” becomes a powerful barrier to change.

Underestimation of Hidden Costs

The true value of STE isn’t always immediately apparent. The costs of ambiguous documentation – including extended review cycles, frequent clarification requests, increased translation expenses due to low translation memory leverage, and errors stemming from misinterpretation – are often hidden. They’re absorbed across different departments and budgets, rarely aggregated into a single, alarming figure. Until a crisis hits or a deep dive into these inefficiencies is conducted, the compelling return on investment that STE offers remains largely unseen.

Natural Resistance to Change

Implementing STE requires discipline and a fundamental shift in writing habits. It’s not just about learning rules; it’s about unlearning old patterns and consistently applying new ones. This human element of change management is often underestimated. People may intellectually agree with the benefits but struggle with the practical, day-to-day application, especially without proper training and ongoing support.

Lack of Awareness Beyond the Superficial

For some, the understanding of STE extends only to a superficial “it’s simpler” or “it’s for non-native speakers.” They might not grasp the depth of its benefits in areas like risk mitigation, regulatory compliance, or the profound impact on automated translation and content reuse. Without a comprehensive understanding of its strategic value, STE can be dismissed as just another “technical writing fad” or an unnecessary layer of complexity.

Introduction

Clear, unambiguous, and consistent technical documentation is paramount in the complex and safety-critical world of urban mobility. This case study highlights a successful engagement with Schindler Group, a global leader in elevators, escalators, and related services, focused on achieving their technical communication through comprehensive Simplified Technical English (STE) implementation.

Client Background

Schindler Group, headquartered in Ebikon, Switzerland, is renowned for its innovative and sustainable mobility solutions. With a vast international presence and a diverse workforce, ensuring that technical manuals, maintenance procedures, and product documentation are universally understood is a strategic imperative, particularly for safety and operational efficiency.

The Challenge

Prior to the engagement, Schindler, like many multinational corporations, faced the inherent challenges of technical documentation:

• Ambiguity: Standard English, with its rich vocabulary and complex grammatical structures, can lead to misinterpretations, especially among non-native English speakers.
• Inconsistency: Multiple authors and external vendors, potentially across different regions, could result in varied writing styles and terminology, hindering clarity and increasing translation costs.
• Translation Efficiency: Complex source texts often led to higher translation costs and potential errors in localised versions, impacting global operations.
• Safety Criticality: In the elevator and escalator industry, any misunderstanding in technical instructions can have severe safety implications.

Schindler recognised the need for a standardised approach to technical English to mitigate these risks and improve the overall quality and efficiency of their documentation.

Phase 2: Document Rewriting and Refinement Following the initial training, a direct engagement commenced with key personnel to apply STE principles to existing documentation. This involved close collaboration with:

• Principal Corporate Technical Author: To ensure the practical application of STE rules and to establish internal champions for the standard.
• Head of Corporate Technical Documentation: To oversee the strategic implementation and integration of STE into Schindler’s documentation workflows.

This hands-on rewriting process ensured that the theoretical knowledge gained during training was immediately put into practice, demonstrating tangible improvements in clarity and consistency.

Phase 3: Global Expansion of Training Recognising the success and the need for global consistency, the training was extended to other critical regions. A dedicated online training session was conducted for:

• Corporate Technical Documentation colleagues in Shanghai, China: This expanded the reach of STE adoption, ensuring that documentation produced in a key international hub also conformed to the new global standard.

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Key Stakeholders and Organisational Impact

The success of this initiative was a testament to the collaborative effort across various departments and external partners, demonstrating how STE benefits different parts of the organisation:

• Leadership and Management: Gained strategic alignment and understanding of STE’s business value in achieving safety, efficiency, and global reach.
• Engineering and Product Development Teams (including Subject Matter Experts): Benefited from improved clarity in technical specifications, design documents, and maintenance requirements, ensuring precise input and reduced ambiguity from the source.
• Technical Documentation Teams (in-house and external partners): Acquired practical skills in applying STE rules, leading to more consistent, unambiguous, and efficient content creation for manuals, procedures, and other technical assets.
• Terminology and Language Specialists: Enhanced their ability to manage and control technical vocabulary, ensuring consistency across all documentation and facilitating improved translation quality.
• Translation Teams: Experienced streamlined translation processes due to the reduced ambiguity and increased consistency of STE-compliant source texts.

Results and Impact

The implementation of STE at Schindler Group yielded significant benefits:

• Achieved Clarity and Readability: Documents became easier to understand for a global audience, including non-native English speakers, reducing the risk of misinterpretation.
• Improved Consistency: A unified writing style and controlled vocabulary ensured consistency across all technical documentation, regardless of the author or origin.
• Increased Efficiency: Streamlined writing processes and clearer source texts led to more efficient documentation creation and review cycles.
• Reduced Translation Costs: The unambiguous nature of STE significantly lowered translation costs and improved the quality of translated materials.
• Strengthened Safety: By eliminating ambiguity in critical instructions, the overall safety of operations and maintenance procedures was achieved.

Testimonials

This impact was echoed by participants:

Roland Kiser, Terminology Coordinator at Schindler, noted: “This course shares a good overview of structure, purpose, history, and contextual information about STE. The limited vocabulary and restricted list of words, short sentence constructions, active voice, and imperative verb usage are valuable takeaways messages to act upon in Simplified English. The examples used in this training are quite realistic and it is very likely that I will recommend this STE training to someone else.”

Cécile Roos, Corporate Translation Manager, added: “Entertaining, short, and clear presentation of the STE specification and rule sets. Overall, a good mix of rules, examples, and exercises. The course was very much on point and encouraged me to write in a more structured way. This will help the readers to properly understand my message even in business writing. Shumin had a very calm way of leading all of us through the training. Her style of teaching is rather empathetic and she keeps the group working effectively with timely breaks in between. Thanks Shumin for an enjoyable course with the perfect score of 10/10 in terms of trainer evaluation.”

Marco Valtangoli, Senior Corporate Technical Author at Schindler, also provided valuable feedback: “A very important and highlighted point during the introduction is that STE is an English language specification that is not only applicable for companies in the aerospace & defence industry. Rule 5.2 where you only have one instruction per sentence is important to us. Not being able to use the verb “CHECK’ that is only used as an approved STE noun poses a challenge to me all the time. I really appreciate the STE writing rules that give us the possibility to improve the consistency of our documents. The workshop exercises were of high interest value and drive home the point that it is important to learn by doing. Although a time-consuming process, the writing workshop impressed on me that the need to prioritise the analysis of our internal documents. Shumin is a competent trainer who does not only focus on explaining and enforcing the “writing rules”, but is always available to understand and empathise with the training needs of the class.”

Conclusion

The comprehensive STE training and document rewriting initiative with Schindler Group stands as a strong example of how strategic investment in technical communication can drive operational excellence, improve safety, and foster global consistency within a leading industrial enterprise. By empowering their diverse teams with the tools and knowledge of Simplified Technical English, Schindler reinforced its commitment to delivering clear, reliable, and high-quality documentation worldwide.

If your organisation faces similar challenges in achieving uncompromising clarity and operational readiness through precise communication, discover how Shufrans TechDocs can help. Learn more about our ASD-STE100 training and consulting services:

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This two-day professional training course is intended for technical authors to familiarise themselves with the ASD-STE100 controlled language specification through a series of classroom- and workshop-type instruction and interaction.

Summary

ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English (STE) is a controlled language that is used to write technical manuals in such a way that they can be more easily understood by an international audience. STE helps to make translations cheaper and more accurate.

STE improves quality, both in the aviation and defence industries, where it is often mandatory for safety reasons, and in any other technical industries. 

Course outline*

• Practical overview of ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English
• How STE helps both native & non-native speakers of English
• Writing rules and how to apply them in practice
• How to use the general vocabulary
• How to deal with industry-specific terminology
• How to use STE for various documentation types
• How to implement STE with minimal disruption to on-going production and existing documentation
• Hands-on STE editing and review

* Shufrans also offers customised ASD-STE100 training solutions tailored to meet your specific requirements. These courses are normally provided at the customer’s premises.

“STE is a ‘way of life’ in the field of technical writing and documentation. The ASD-STE100 exercises covered a wide spectrum of topics from choosing between approved and non-approved words to recreating documentation in STE. Shumin expertly guides us from classroom learning mode to real-life practical application of STE rules. The materials that she presented were informative and very convincing.” Martin Broekhuis, Technical Editor, Webasto.

Who should attend?

• Compliance managers
• CIO, COO, CTO
• Customer support managers
• Documentation managers
• Editors
• Engineering managers
• Engineers and SMEs who create documentation
• Graphics specialists
• ILS managers
• Maintenance managers
• Operation managers
• Product managers
• Project managers
• Quality managers
• Software research engineers
• Technical illustrators
• Technical writers
• Translation managers
• Translators

What training outcomes to expect?

Ms. Shumin Chen will teach participants how to correctly and effectively use STE in practice. She will also address some of the mistakes commonly found in technical writing and the frequently incorrect use of common STE writing rules.

Our interactive training, exercises and workshop, will teach participants to standardise content to:

• Author more efficiently
• Communicate more effectively with a global audience
• Improve operational safety
• Reduce AOG / downtime
• Facilitate modular writing and reuse
• Facilitate teamwork
• Facilitate translation
• Maximise consistency
• Optimise product lifecycle support
• Reduce the cost of creating and maintaining technical publications

Trainer’s qualifications

Ms. Shumin Chen, principal trainer & consultant at Shufrans TechDocs received her professional on-the-job training in the field of STE under the tutelage of Dr Frans Wijma, a linguist and documentation expert. Together as an experienced global team, they provided their combined knowledge and dedication to benefit customers worldwide. To date, they have provided training and consultancy services to over 170 companies. Shufrans TechDocs is the only company with such vast experience in providing certified STE training.

Shumin has supported various companies with their STE and other documentation needs, based on standards where possible. Although STE was developed for the aerospace industry, more specifically for aircraft maintenance documentation, Shumin found that it made a lot of sense to apply the same principles to other industries and types of documents as well. Few -if any- changes to the specification are necessary to adapt STE to industries ranging from machinery to IT, automotive to medical equipment.

Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI/TUSAŞ) is Turkey’s centre of technology in design, development, modernisation, manufacturing, integration and lifecycle support of integrated aerospace systems, including fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft, UAVs and satellites.

TAI asked Shufra to assess the level of compliance of its documentation with the ASD-STE100 specification. Based on the findings, Shufra delivered an advanced training course for the technical writers and other people in the ILS department, providing them with new insights to take compliance to the next level. Writers especially liked the workshop that allowed participants to review and rewrite their own document samples under the guidance of the experienced Dr Frans Wijma who is widely regarded as the leading expert in Simplified Technical English, aviation documentation and multilingual documentation.

He gave ASD-STE100 training to over 130 companies worldwide. Customers include Black & Decker, Boeing, Microsoft, Rolls-Royce and Samsung. Said ILS specialist Mr Halil Kan: “TAI hired Frans to work with our experienced team and help them to improve their ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English skills. Frans helped us to identify areas for improvement both in our own documents and in those supplied by our customers and partners. At the end of the training, we all had learned simple yet effective methods to improve the quality, readability and compliance of our writing. Most importantly, we learned how to scrutinize text for commonly made mistakes and how to balance compliance with optimum readability. We enjoyed working with Frans, who has a pleasant personality and an open mind. I am happy to recommend him to any company that wants to improve its documentation, be it for compliance reasons or to facilitate translation.”

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