communication

Are We Too Verbal?

By in Communication, Language Tags: , ,

Too_Verbal

When I travel, I notice that in other countries, they make more use of symbols and images than we do in the United States. I saw the sign below when I traveled on a Mexican bus recently. One word and one picture made the point briefly and without ambiguity.

Exclusivo

I wonder what readers think. Is it because we expect everyone to understand English and to be literate? Or do we tend to use words more because we fear misunderstandings? Or do you think we use symbols just as much in the United States? I think we tend to use signs like the one below. I also believe that there might be an opportunity to communicate more effectively with our patients, students, and customers if we use images more often.

Expectant Moms

Design — Less Is Better

By in Innovation, Technology Tags: , , , , , ,

Web_Design

Dieter Rams is a German industrial engineer who is famous for his ten principles of good design. The tenth principle is “Good design is as little design as possible. Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.”

I have recently been impressed by the award-winning website, Gov.UK. The site replaces hundreds of British government websites, and it aims to be a quick and functional way for citizens and businesses to access information about the government. Here are a few things I noticed that might be of interest to anyone thinking of designing a website to support a large or complex organization:

  1. The site is written in plain language. There is no jargon or legalese.
  2. The site is designed from the perspective of the user. It seems as if the designers know that nobody is really interested in the structure of the government. For example, if you want to find out your tax rate, the link is “Money and Tax.” There is no need for you to guess which department handles that.
  3. There are no decorative graphics. A crown logo makes it clear that this is the British government website, but there aren’t any gratuitous pictures that add nothing to its function.

When the site won the Design Museum’s Design of the Year award, the British newspaper, The Daily Mail, scoffed “And the award goes to boring.com!” But in my opinion, for a government website, boring is good! How refreshing to be able to reach the information you need quickly and easily.

Give the site a try. Imagine you’re a British citizen, and you want to figure out your tax rate. Go to Gov.UK, and count the clicks it takes to find the information you need. Now go to the American government site to accomplish the same thing.

Let us know what you think! Is less really more? Or is boring really bad?

Plain Language for Medical Professionals

By in Language Tags: , , , ,

Medical_Jargon

In a previous article, I described the work of Sir Ernest Gowers, an advocate of plain language. His message is “be short, be simple, be human.”

Medical professionals need to master the art of communicating simply and clearly almost more than anyone else. Why, for example, would anyone believe that it’s better to say, “Do not exceed the stated dose,” than the simpler, “Don’t take more than the right amount”?

We know that many people are undereducated; others are speakers of other languages; three of the words in that sentence (exceed, stated, dose) are a little difficult for some; and others may have reading disabilities.

Even if we aren’t talking to patients, we need to communicate consistently in ways everyone can understand. People don’t have the time to plow through hard-to-read documents. The days when we believed that long words, vogue expressions, and jargon made us sound learned are simply over. Global audiences demand clarity of thought and simplicity of expression.

Recognizing this problem, the NIH has an excellent resource that will help people in medicine to simplify their language. At no charge, they offer an online course with examples and practical exercises to help medical professionals improve their writing. The system tracks your progress, and, when you’ve completed the course, you can print out a certificate of completion.

To access this resource, click here.

Be Short, Be Simple, Be Human — Sir Ernest Gowers

By in Language Tags: , ,

Writing2

Sir Ernest Gowers (1880 – 1966) was a British civil servant. He was educated at Rugby (where the game was invented) and Cambridge, where he studied Classics. He had a long, distinguished, and varied career with the civil service, including a time when he was private secretary for David Lloyd George when Lloyd George was introducing the controversial National Insurance Bill.

But Gowers is best remembered as a pioneering advocate of plain words, the idea that we should try to make our written and spoken language more simple and easy to understand. In 1928, he wrote an article called “Mainly About the King’s English,” in which he observed that government officials tend to “revel in jargon and obscurity.” This article was the beginning of his crusade against the kind of wordy jargon we so often find in legal, government, and scientific writing. Sometimes, Gowers pointed out, people use long phrases to show that they are serious about something. As an example, he suggests that a response in Parliament would sound more palatable to a member if the Minister said, “I am sorry, I don’t know” rather than, “I regret that the information desired by the honorable member is not in my possession.”

He was concerned about “a habit of mind that is apt to lead us into absurdities; to shunning words that mean something and taking refuge in words that mean nothing; to being frightened, for instance, of plain and straightforward adjectives such as ‘great’ and ‘small’ and falling back on ‘appreciable’ and ‘inappreciable’ or ‘considerable’ and ‘inconsiderable.'”

After the end of the Second World War, Gowers wrote a 94-page pamphlet called Plain Words. This work was an instant success, and changed the British government’s approach to communicating with the public. The initiative was particularly timely because, after the war, the government was under pressure to be more transparent, democratic, and inclusive.

In short, the message is “Be short, be simple, be human.” It is a message that endures today for anyone in the business of spreading ideas.

In future articles, we will try to provide resources that will help you do exactly that!

If you’d like to find ways of making your communication more simple and approachable, an interesting starting point might be to get hold of an updated version of Sir Ernest Gowers’ book from Amazon. Quite apart from its important message, it’s a witty book and an entertaining read.

Click here to see the book on Amazon.

 

Gowers, E. (1929). Mainly about the King’s English. Public Administration, 7(2), 182-191.

Gowers, E. (1948). Plain words. London, England: HMSO.

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