"Has Your Writing Been Stress Tested?"

—written by Phil Khan, Digital Jive Services

Speaker: Klaus Hofer, Training Consultant and Psychologist

You are a paramedic. You have been called to an emergency. You rush to the scene and discover an unconscious person whose face is turning green. You do not know why. In their pocket is some medication, complete with instructions. You unfold the instructions. You see several pages of small print. Nothing jumps out at you. You start to read. The victim’s face is turning ever more green. What do you do?

Professor Klaus Hofer used this story to kick start his address to the January meeting of the STC Toronto chapter. Hofer holds a degree in experimental psychology and his studies focus on the area of usability. His expertise in this field is widely recognized and he has conducted seminars for many corporate and governments clients.

Stepping back into the shoes of our poor paramedic, what was the problem with the instructions? They were logical. They were accurate. They were even concise. And as a paramedic they were well within your understanding, if only you had not been desperately trying to save the patient’s life. And that is the crucial point... the instructions failed to consider the psychology of the user. They did not take into account that a person trying to save a patient will be very stressed and looking for short, explicit instructions. Finding the answers required concentration and study, and this made the document useless in an emergency situation.

Hofer believes that good design and good writing require a knowledge of your audience and an understanding of human psychology. He illustrated his point with a true story. A European shopping mall was the target of complaints for having bathrooms which were hard to find. To solve the problem, they installed signs all over the mall. As a test, they then led people to different places in the mall and told them to locate the bathroom. The test subjects were able to do this and the problem was considered solved. Except that complaints kept coming in. The reason? The customers had an added cause for anxiety which caused them to miss the signs. Unlike the test subjects, they actually did need to go to the bathroom.

Hofer went on to give some suggestions on how technical writers can reduce stress for their users. One way of doing this is to incorporate ‘rewards’ into your documentation. Hofer used the example of someone asking directions to the railway station. If you tell them to “walk 500 metres, turn left and proceed 600 metres, then turn right and walk 300 metres” their stress will slowly increase until they reach their destination. They might even give up before that point and ask someone else. However, if you tell them to “walk 500 metres till you come to the bank, turn left and proceed 600 metres till you come to the hotel, turn right and proceed 300 metres to the station,” then each landmark is a ‘reward’ that reduces their stress by confirming to them that they are taking the correct route. Interestingly, Hofer pointed out that men tend to give directions using only distances while women tend to use only landmarks. Neither method is complete; while the former creates stress, the latter will lead to big problems if the person misses a landmark.

Hofer concluded his speech by commenting on some examples of good and bad websites. Dismissing superfluous decoration, he emphasized the importance of clear documentation with titles and subtitles which accurately describe the content. Finally he warned writers that gender bias and cultural insensitivity can also distract readers from your instructions and should be avoided. Hofer’s most important message though was that technical writing should enable users to perform actions, rather than teaching for its own sake. A hard point to dispute, especially if you were that paramedic or the even less fortunate patient.