There’s growing consumer demand for clarity, and growing antipathy toward jargon and other sorts of obfuscation. That’s one crystal-clear lesson to be drawn from a Siegel+Gale survey released this month.

It’s not as if most people were ever fans of needless complexity. But their distaste for it has taken on new urgency since the financial system’s near-collapse. Seventy-five percent of respondents to the polling, fielded in December and January among investors and homeowners, agreed that “Complexity and lack of understanding has played a significant role in the current financial crisis.” Nor do they think such opaque communication always happens by accident: Many detect a nefarious purpose in it (see the chart above).

This is reflected in another of the poll’s findings: 37 percent of respondents said they are less likely to trust their mortgage lender than they were a year earlier; 36 percent said the same about their broker or financial adviser and 35 percent about their bank.

Companies that do communicate lucidly have an advantage in creating a rapport with potential customers, to judge by another of the survey’s findings: 84 percent of respondents agreed (39 percent “strongly”) with the statement, “I am more likely to trust a company that uses jargon-free, plain English in its communications.”

If language of that sort were used in “explanations and disclosures” about various products and services, 79 percent of those polled would be more interested in investing in a financial product. Many others would be more apt to buy a life-insurance policy (67 percent), a new car (66 percent), a mobile phone (61 percent) or a laptop computer (58 percent). Sixty-three percent said they would be more likely to apply for a credit card and 60 percent to apply for a mortgage.

None of this means that people expect intrinsically complex material to be see-Spot-run easy to grasp. Seventy-six percent subscribed to the statement, “Financial products are inherently complicated. It’s the final responsibility of the customer to make sure they understand all the risks.” But that doesn’t stop them from looking askance at institutions that shirk a good-faith effort to help such understanding along.

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