A realistic amount of information is more likely to be read

A couple of events occurred yesterday that made me think it was worth me talking about this topic.

One of them was a tweet by Jane Dominguez, also known as @WriteAdvantage which said ‘A one-screen business email is more likely to be read and give you the results you want’.

The second event was something that came in the post. It was the information about the type of bank account I’ve just switched to, which came in a suitably glossy booklet with the CD (pictured below) tucked inside it. This CD, so it would seem, contains the terms and conditions for my new account.

Jane makes an important point very eloquently, where the Barclays CD is a fine illustration of the problem of making information unappealing. In order to persuade anyone to think about reading or using information they are provided with, it at least needs to look like they’re being asked to perform a manageable task. Jane’s comment about a ‘one-screen email’ very neatly sets what is a very sensible parameter of keeping all the information you’re asking someone to read visible in one go (lets not get picky about screen sizes etc). On the whole the instinct when we see an email tailing off the screen is to scroll and see how long it is – and the longer the scrolling takes, the less likely it is to be read.

So what’s the problem with the CD I hear you ask, it’s very neatly packaged? Well, no matter what the situation, terms and conditions are going to be long and painful to read. If I have them in some sort of printed format though, I can at least get a sense of how long they are, but when they aren’t visible I can only assume that there are more of them than I’m going to be able face looking at. Whether or not this is actually the case is irrelevant, it’s simply the perception I’m given by the absence of any scale.