User based communication – is it worth the trouble?
If users cannot find the information they need quickly, or if they cannot easily understand what they read, they will likely give up. Worse still, potential customers could go to information provided by your competitor. Workers may make up procedures themselves, making work instructions worthless and destroying quality assurance.
Organising information in a way that makes sense to the user is essential. Expressing your thoughts clearly and in familiar language makes ‘contact’ with your reader.
User based communication is very different to the information dump approach — “I’ll tell you all that I know and you figure out what you need from that.” Surprisingly, such a cumbersome approach is still common, particularly in internal procedure documents.
Writing for the user increases the likelihood that the material will be read, understood and acted on. It’s worth the extra effort.
Write for your reader
The last issue of ‘Communication Matters’ provided a list of questions to help you understand your reader
better.
The questions below help you take the next step – organising and writing your text.
How will the reader discover this information?
Will they be looking for an answer to a specific question they have, or just reading for interest?
What are they likely to be doing when they go looking for information?
What will the reader do with the information?
Do they need to follow a procedure you are describing?
Do they need to combine this information with other information? Where will they get this from?
How can I organise this in a way that makes sense to my reader?
How are the ideas related? (In general, it is best to start with the ‘big picture’ before moving into detail. )
What do my readers already know about this topic?
How can I organise this into less than 7 ‘chunks’? (Use headings to separate the chunks, use paragraphs to further organise the chunks.)
What can I safely leave out? (Readers find it tiresome to wade through text that has no relevance to their interest or needs.)
When you start writing:
Get straight to the point.
Use words familiar to your reader.
Keep sentences short and simple. Each sentence should cover only one point.
Use the active voice and avoid the passive voice.
Write directly to your audience i.e. use 'we' and 'you'.
Use verbs (action words), not nouns made from verbs.
Use simple, short words.
The forgotten step of document design – User
Testing.
We’ve probably all come across documents that just don’t make sense to us. Text that is obscure, or forms that don’t flow logically or that ask questions we are not sure how to
answer.
Believe it or not, these are not developed by people trying to make life difficult!. They are usually designed by people with good intentions, but who are not looking from the perspective of the user.
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Only the user can truly evaluate a communication device. As far back as 320 BC Aristotle said: “One must consider also the audience … the reader is the judge.” If a reader or user thinks it is unclear or difficult, then it is. It doesn’t matter how much work you’ve put into it, or how good you think it is. In document design, common sense and professional experience will take you so far. Discussing your work with a colleague (peer review) will further improve your work. But there are some things you can only find out from the users. This requires real testing, with real users in real (or closely simulated) situations. It is only as you watch people use your document that you see some of its shortcomings. Things that seem obvious or logical to you may not be to users. The cost of poor design can be huge. A poorly designed form may generate thousands of phone calls to clarify it, or you may not get the information you need. |
Yet, the cost of testing is not great – you can find out the majority of problems by testing as few as a dozen users. However, testing is often skipped, usually for budget reasons. As with many things, there is never enough time or money to do it right, but there is always enough to do it again.
Say it clearly the first time!
A plumber developed what he thought was an excellent method for cleaning drains. He wrote to the Sewerage Authority to tell them that he was using hydrochloric acid and to ask them if it was harmless.
The authority replied, “The efficacy of hydrochloric acid is indisputable, but the chlorine residue is incompatible with metallic permanence.”
The plumber wrote back, thanking the authority for agreeing with him. Alarmed by his response, the authority wrote another letter, saying,
“We cannot assume responsibility for the production of toxic and noxious residues with hydrochloric acid, and suggest that you use an alternative procedure.”
The plumber wrote again, explaining how happy he was to learn that they still agreed with him.
At this stage, the authority put the problem in simple terms:
“Don’t use hydrochloric acid. It eats the hell out of the pipes.”
Finally the plumber understood.
