

Why Every Terms of Service Page Needs Summaries - transmute
http://uxmovement.com/content/why-every-terms-of-service-page-needs-summaries/

======
patio11
The reason lawyers don't always OK this: contracts are lengthy and precise
because the law values precision and negotiations/cases can _literally_ turn
on the position of a single comma. _People don 't naturally write like this._

If you write a contract with In Laymen's Terms next to the actual legal code,
a court may in the future find that someone's inaccurate interpretation of
your Laymen's Terms is _controlling_ over the actual, unambiguous legal code.

Also: practically speaking, few enough people read ToS documents that, for the
typical app, the only important audiences for it are a) in-house lawyers and
b) people who want to sue you. It is probably unwise to optimize for the
experience of people who want to sue you.

~~~
transmute
Yes, precision is important so that people don't bend terms in their favor.
But a court ruling that the summaries take precedent over the actual legal
terms won't happen if it's made clear that they are summaries, and if the
summaries are accurate to the legal terms they're summarizing. So your fear of
summary misinterpretation is unwarranted. You're overlooking the huge benefit
of term summaries for both websites and users.

