robert hempsall - information designer » Language

Statistical confusion of olympian proportions

Robert — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 21:35:06 +0000

This email about the cost of tickets for the Olympics left me shocked. Not because I clicked through to find out that a ticket for the 100m final would cost £750, but because of the utterly bizarre approach to presenting the figures.

Don’t duplicate it – delete it

Robert — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 21:12:00 +0000

A comment I often make, is that 'I get paid to delete stuff'. It's meant to be self-deprecating but it's largely true.

And what's the first thing I look for when I've got my hatcheting head on? Duplicated information.

As a first step to making information simpler, deleting duplicated information is a great place to start, particularly because it doesn't require any great analysis. It's a very simple process.

The Plain Language Act

Robert — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 20:39:06 +0000

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 [...]

The Crystalmeth Mark

Robert — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 08:42:08 +0000

This was my Eureka moment in the bath - not exactly Archimedes I grant you. I think it's time for a new standard in plain english. I give you the 'The Crystalmeth Mark - can people understand your information while under the influence?'

Alright, so you've taken a look at the date and realised I'm not entirely serious, but I do have a valid point to make.

bmi baby baggage allowance text

Robert — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 20:47:40 +0000

A little while ago I picked up on a tweet from Mark Boulton about the confusing information about baggage allowance that he experienced on the bmibaby website. Having taken a look at the site in question it was easy to see why.

Having already had a go at Virgin Atlantic's baggage information I thought I'd have a go at this too. Here's how I got on

Open09

Robert — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:00:02 +0000

Well I survived day 1 of open09 in Preston, and I have to admit, I was wrong – there, I’ve said it, now don’t expect to hear it again for a long time. I had a slightly cynical attitude going in, something along the lines of it possibly being a bit ‘studenty’ (to quote someone [...]

Aims and objectives

Robert — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 23:30:09 +0000

In a meeting today I was presented with a list of aims and objectives. I’m sure I’ve been presented with these kind of things many times before, but today was the day it occurred to me to potentially make myself look more than a little ignorant. ‘What’s the difference between an aim and an objective?’ [...]

Saying nothing

admin — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 22:38:26 +0000

Because I’m a nice person, I’m creating a quick website for a local sports club. Today they provided me with some text, its introduction begins: ’…has been running for a number of years, over which it has experienced varying degrees of success’. I think this covers all possible bases.

iEtiquette

admin — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 21:32:09 +0000

During a brief discussion about the plural of asterisk I turned to my favourite source of word related support, Apple’s Dictionary application. Having found the answer to be the rather disappointing ‘asterisks’ (I was expecting something a little more glamorous) I was rather amused by the note at the doing its bit help Apple Mac [...]

Tone of voice

admin — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 10:14:15 +0000

There’s a very clever part of branding called ‘tone of voice’; this post has nothing to do with that. This is just a quick whine about being in telephone queues and being thanked for my patience at the very point, about 20 minutes into the call, that I’m screaming at the handset to ‘just ****ing [...]