The other day my Dad, Dave the brother-in-law, and I made an attempt to change the driver’s side wiper on my car. It doesn’t appear as if it should be that difficult, ideally the wiper simply clicks into place, and if it doesn’t quite fit, there are two adapters. Despite multiple attempts, there was absolutely no clicking. The instructions described how to use the B-adapter and the H-adapter, showing pictures of the B-adapter and a C-adapter, but sadly ignoring a picture of the H-adapter. Was there really an H-adapter, or was it the C-adapter? Or vice versa? (This would be my conclusion, but can you really preclude the possibility that the instructions simply forgot one and the other?) The wiper should fit since it is the brand and size I previously purchased (although I must admit to asking the guys who changed the car’s oil to attach them, and have no idea if they had any difficulty).

The instructions were simply not helpful, even for my Dad and Dave who have changed numerous wipers on numerous vehicles in the course of their lives, and are both intelligent and highly capable people. I am convinced the instructions are meant to be understood only by those who may have an engineering degree in their pocket. The words were recognizably English, but whether they communicate any real information is far less certain. Unfortunately for me, we were not successful in attaching the new wiper which created a rather adventurous drive home at dusk in a downpour with the old, wimpy wiper. If not for the Rain-X, it would have indeed been more than a little exciting. But challenges make us stronger, right?

Don’t let your voice (i.e. message) get lost in the clutter.

A few years ago, I interviewed for a communications position with a nonprofit. And in preparing and researching, I perused the organizations web site, which this position would have control over, and found a lack of cohesiveness, and worse, confusion as to whom the audience should be. They had scientific articles next to articles for the general public. Who was their audience? Were they trying to appeal to the public at large or to scientists? Seemingly both, but it was not apparent. I had an instructor who once said, “Never leave your audience to guess at what is being said.” This cannot be emphasized enough and easily applies to many situations. Who are you trying to talk to? What do you want to convey and how do you best convey it to your audience? In the interview, I mentioned the confusion of audience, and his response was, “The scientists on our Board of Directors like it.” But were they his audience? Maybe.

If you want to reach more than one group, such as the general public and scientists, then make the message or information clear for each group. Have a section for scientific review and a section for everyone else. More than that, does it make sense? Just because all the words can be found in an English dictionary does not make your message comprehensible.

I interviewed for another position which required some testing  and found the instructions for one task to be ambiguous at best. And there were no options to ask for clarification. If I couldn’t figure it out, that was my problem. I’m reasonably intelligent and fairly well educated with a degree in English which you could assume would help me understand most instructions, but even after the third reading it was still unclear what they wanted me to do.

The lack of clarity once happened for an assignment in an English class. One of the options was to read a poem backwards, or something to that effect, so I did. It wasn’t what she’d intended, but it worked in my favor and the Professor decided to leave the wording as it was, since it created an interesting outcome for us both.

One of the things I loved most about English classes (which could be said for just about any humanities-type class) is the different things people noticed in stories and books. Definitely worth keeping in mind when writing just about anything: books, articles, instructions, web sites. If you leave room for interpretation, that’s exactly what will happen, and your meaning or intention could disappear. Not a bad thing if it’s a fictional book or story, your audience could and will bring more to the story, but not so great if they are instructions on how to handle a nuclear weapon. That situation might not end so well.