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The difference between answering questions and getting answers

Two recent news items made me think about the differences in the way we react when we are asked questions, and when we want questions answered. These are my thoughts.

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Detail that makes the difference

A few days ago, I came across this TED talk given by Rory Sutherland of Ogilvy about the importance of detail. Although only the last 20 seconds bear any direct relation to the kind of work I do, but it’s a fascinating and entertaining talk in terms of a plea to organisations to stop looking for ‘big-picture’ solutions to problems which can just as easily be fixed by sorting out the detail instead.

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A heavenly piece of information design

Today I had an email request from an ex-colleague who was looking for, in her words, ‘an info design archetype’. What she was looking for was an example where, purely through design, a document had been made to look simpler.

There was something that had long since slipped to the back of memory, largely because it’s not something I see on an everyday basis. And this is what it was: it’s the service from when my daughter was christened, and it’s a fabulous example of what can be achieved with some simple typography.

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The Plain Language Act

There has been a lot of talk in the plain language field about the forthcoming vote on the Plain Language Bill in the US. Its premise is very simple: to require the federal government to write all new publications, forms, and publicly distributed documents in a “clear, concise, well-organized” manner that follows the best practices [...]

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