Xero — Laura Southgate and Ros Black

Judges’ comment

Great examples of simple, step-by-step communication of technical steps to an inexperienced audience. Genuinely technical content — how to use software — and successful at making it easy to follow and understand.

The Xero team are clearly on board with a corporate style — which is a positive — but it has led to a tie for these two entries. Across the board, Xero’s use of language is crisp and clear, making them exemplars of technical communications in plain English. We wish to commend Xero’s continued growth and improvement and we know they will continue to excel.

Media statement

We both feel honoured to be named as finalists in the Best Plain English Technical Communicator category. Ros is thrilled to also be named as a finalist in the Best Plain English Sentence Transformation category.

We are technical writers in Xero’s Help Centre team. We’re passionate about plain English and want to make life easier for thousands of small businesses around the world. We’ve had multiple finalist placings in the Awards over the past few years, and we’re proud that experts continue to recognise our commitment to plain English.

Xero is online accounting software for small businesses.

Laura Southgate and Ros Black