If you have a Facebook account, I imagine you vaguely remember scrolling to the bottom of a very long agreement and clicking a box when you joined back in 2008. You probably didn’t really read it – nobody did.
In 2014, that came back to bite Facebook in a very public way. The company had secretly manipulated the news feeds of roughly 689,000 users as part of a psychological study on emotional contagion and when the study was published, Facebook argued it had obtained “informed consent” because users had technically agreed to its Data Use Policy.
That policy was 9,045 words long. The phrase authorizing research use was one buried sentence.
The backlash was immediate and severe. The journal that published the study added an editorial note expressing concern about the consent process. A Facebook researcher issued a public apology. Legal scholars filed complaints with the FTC, the federal Office for Human Research Protections, and state attorneys general. The argument wasn’t just that what Facebook had done was unethical, but burying consent in fine print may actually be illegal.
Facebook is obviously not a typical research or program evaluation entity, but the underlying lesson applies directly to your work: when people don’t genuinely understand what they’re agreeing to, you don’t have consent, you have a signature.
This problem isn’t unique to giant tech companies with armies of lawyers. It shows up constantly in community research, online surveys, and program evaluations, just at a much smaller scale and with much less fanfare. Dense, confusing consent forms erode trust, suppress participation, and can create real headaches if your project ever faces IRB scrutiny or funder review.
But writing a consent form that real people can understand is entirely doable, it just requires thinking about your participant first.
Why Consent Forms End Up So Hard to Read
If you’ve reviewed a lot of consent forms — the way our team has through our IRB review work — a few patterns show up consistently.
The most common problem is density. Organizations try to put everything into the consent form: a full literature review on the project, detailed methodology, every possible benefit andrisk scenario, long explanations of mitigation strategies. The result is a document that functions exactly like that Facebook terms of service agreement — technically signed, practically unread.
Research consistently shows that consent forms are frequently written at reading levels far exceeding participants’ abilities, even when IRBs recommend targeting an 8th-grade reading level. In a community research setting, that gap has real consequences: people don’t engage with the content, and true informed consent doesn’t happen.
Organizations often overstate the benefits and understate risk in these overly wordy consent forms. But there’s a difference between honestly naming a risk and then describing how it’s managed versus minimizing it in a way that leaves participants underprepared. The first builds trust, the second can undermine it.
And consent often unintentionally bury the facts that a) participation is always voluntary, and b) participants can stop/leave at any time. For community members who may have complicated histories with institutions, programs, or authority figures this is one of the most important things a consent form communicates.
It should be clear that a consent form isn’t a contract binding the participant to anything; it’s the researcher’s commitment to them.
What a Readable Consent Form Looks Like
Readable doesn’t mean dumbed down. It means clear, honest, and respectful of the reader’s time and intelligence.
Keep sentences short
Studies on consent form readability consistently flag sentence length as one of the biggest contributors to comprehension difficulty. Aim for sentences under 15 words whenever possible. If a sentence requires more than one re-read, it needs to be broken up.
Use “you” and “we” language
Writing in the second person — “you will be asked to…” rather than “participants will be asked to…” — makes the document feel like a conversation, not a legal instrument. Research on consent form design confirms that first- and second-person phrasing makes text more accessible and easier to understand.
Lead with what matters to the participant
Before you explain your research goals, tell participants
- what they’re being asked to do
- how long it will take
- whether there’s anything they should know upfront about sensitive topics or potential discomfort.
Most people do not need (or want) the academic background on why your project matters.
Only cover the essentials
That’s it. One page should be sufficient to provide a key “executive summary” of the project, and additional pages can be provided for anyone that is interested in the academic background.
Don’t bury the voluntary nature of participation
This belongs near the top, in plain language: “You can choose not to participate. You can stop at any time. This will not affect your relationship with [organization].”
The Sections Every Consent Form Needs (And Which One Gets Overloaded)
Based on what IRBs typically want to see, here are the core sections of a consent form:
- Purpose — what the project is, in two or three sentences
- What participation involves — specific, practical, concrete
- Time commitment — exact or estimated
- Risks — honest and named, with mitigation noted
- Benefits — realistic, not oversold
- Confidentiality and data handling — where data goes, who sees it, how long it’s kept
- Voluntary participation and right to withdraw — clearly stated
- Contact information — who to reach and for what
The section that almost always gets overloaded is the project description. Organizations want to explain the importance of their work and provide context, but participants mostly just want to know what they’re getting into. Save the narrative for your report, or add it as an appendix item if they want to explore more
If your project may require IRB review, these sections align with what reviewers will expect to see — which means getting the consent form right from the start can save you revision cycles down the road. We wrote more about setting your project up for review in Data Collection Prep 101.
Test Your Consent Form Before You Use It
Don’t skip testing your form! The simplest version is to hand it to someone unfamiliar with your project — a colleague in a different department, a friend, a community member — and ask them to read it and then tell you, in their own words, what they just agreed to.
More formally, the “teach-back” method, widely used in health literacy contexts, asks participants to explain back what they understood. Gaps in their responses show you exactly where the form needs clarification.
You can also run your draft through free readability tools like the Flesch-Kincaid grade level checker or the SMOG calculator to get a quick sense of whether the reading level is appropriate for your audience.
For organizations working with populations with lower literacy levels, limited English proficiency, or trauma histories, this testing step is especially important.
Consent Forms and Electronic Data Collection
These days, most community data collection happens electronically. That means there’s often no staff member present to walk someone through the form, answer questions, or notice when a participant looks confused.
When consent happens online, the form has to do all the work. That’s a higher bar and it makes plain language even more critical. Electronic consent forms should be short enough to read on a phone screen, visually clear, and free of anything that would cause someone to scroll past without really reading.
If you’re collecting data electronically and your consent form is four pages long, you’ve already lost most participants before they get to the signature. Remember: Facebook couldn’t get people to read 9,000 words. You won’t either.
What Happens When Consent Forms Are Done Well
When consent is clear and honest participants actually understand what they’re agreeing to. Staff feel confident walking people through the process and partners and funders see rigor and respect for participants.
And practically speaking, you’re protected. If questions come up later about what participants were told, how data was handled, or whether participation was truly voluntary, a well-written consent form is your documentation.
This is the foundation of ethical community research and it’s also just good practice. We go deeper on the connection between consent, community review, and data sharing in our post on Informed Consent 101: Protecting People, Not Just Checking Boxes.
Want a Head Start? Get the Plain Language Consent Form Kit
We’re putting together a practical PDF guide designed specifically for community-based organizations and nonprofits: the Plain Language Consent Form Kit.
It’s the tool we wish more organizations had before they started drafting.
Inside you’ll find a ready-to-use plain language consent form template, a readability checklist to test your own drafts, plain language alternatives for common consent form phrases, and guidance on how to adapt the template for sensitive topics, minors, or electronic administration.
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