The Fine Print

Two links about reading and understanding the fine print.

Legal contracts and user agreements are filled with difficult to understand content (thus the term legalese). Why can't lawyers collaborate with information designers to create agreements that users can actually understand?

Siegel+Gale = If it makes your immortal soul feel any better… «

Reader Story: Learning to Read the Fine Print

Bad Day at the (Unemployment) Office

Unemployment is complicated. Staying organized, creating structure to your days, and getting things done to ensure you land well takes focus and commitment. It also takes good information management skills- you  have to deal with a lot of information relating to severance, unemployment compensation, and your benefits. If the information you receive isn't well designed, i.e. with the main points and your required actions clearly highlighted, you will make mistakes and possibly lose benefits.

I missed the first biweekly claim deadline for my unemployment benefits. That's a $1000+ mistake. I received several letters from the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry- my Claim Confirmation (I opened an unemployment claim), my determination of benefits (I am eligible to receive unemployment benefits), an unemployment handbook, my debit card (the state pays via debit card), and a PIN number to access my online account. The note about the deadline to file my first biweekly claim was buried in the Claim Confirmation letter, which I received before my benefits were even determined.

So I missed the deadline. I didn't read every word of each piece of mail. The most important information wasn't highlighted and I didn't see it. I can rail about poor information design, how the critical information was buried in a stack of mail, and how the point of unemployment compensation should be to help those who have been laid off, not make it hard to get the money owed them.

Maybe the state needs someone like me to make it easy for people to get the information they need to act.

Regardless, I'm the one who didn't recognize what I had to do and I'm the one who missed out on $1000. That's an expensive lesson to learn and I take responsibility for my error. Just because the information is poorly designed or hidden in plain sight, doesn't mean I relinquish my responsibility to read and understand it. Especially when the outcome will hit me in my wallet (or debit card).

Exactly My (Power) Point!

I enjoyed Dona Wong's response to the NY Times article about PowerPoint.

Bulletpoints may lead to the demise of society, but probably not.

Does the format/tool you use make it easy for your audience to understand (and act on) your message? If the answer is "Yes", then you're using the right tool, whether it's PowerPoint, Word, email, just you on a podium with Arcade Fire playing in the background...

It's not the tool, it's the story you tell and the way you tell it. Even my kid knows that!

Kid Stuff

My 10-year-old is working on his 4th grade project- a presentation on the Battle of Antietam. He visited this Civil War battle site, learned about it, took pictures, and did research on the Internet and at the Library.

Last night he practiced his draft presentation. He created a PowerPoint presentation with words sweeping in from all angles (kids love that!), a lot of random facts, and no context or story. I've actually seen similar presentations in business settings, minus the flying text!

We talked about it. What is the main thing you want your class to know? (Answer: it was America's bloodiest day). Are there things the class would know about that you could compare the number of casualties to? (Answer: D-Day, 9/11). Can you incorporate your visit to the battlefield to make your presentation more like an interesting and relevant story? (Answer: we dipped our feet in Antietam Creek, which ran red with blood the day of the battle)

I hope he learned something about delivering information and public speaking. The presentation is a little bit better and I think it will be more fun for him and his classmates.

You're never too young to learn to get your message across to the audience.

Tools of the Trade: Project Charter

When I manage projects, I like to keep my team focused on project business goals and timeframes, while minimizing the amount of information they need to deal with to deliver. In a project, you have a Business Problem and Solution and I keep them front and center in every meeting and discussion. Most importantly I create a simple Project Charter and get agreement from the team and project sponsors to use it as the guide for what we do and how we do it.

The Project Charter consists of :

• a simply stated Project Background and Business Problem (3-4 sentences)
• the proposed Solution (2-3 sentences)
• major milestones, with timelines
• key expected Issues and Risks (5 bulletpoints or less)
• Project team members, roles, and contact information
• Project oversight committee members, roles and contact information
• Communication Plan (communication types, methods, roles in a simple table)

One page is the ideal, but the Charter usually rolls into a second page.

I use the Charter to initiate the project and I point to it when we need to figure out how to handle problems, whether to change the Project Plan or Design, and how to know if we're on track to provide a real Business Solution.

To me, projects are about solving real business problems, rather than simply implementing technology or process because it's on our annual objectives. The Project Charter helps the team and the oversight group make sure we deliver something valuable.

YouTube Redesign

Another vote for Less is More from the folks at Tendo, this one on the recent YouTube redesign. Siobhan Nash points out that the clean new look with less unnecessary information is more engaging and easier to understand and navigate. It will be interesting to see if the redesign really pulls more people into the site (because YouTube doesn't have enough users!), engages them, and helps them find the things they're looking for.

Alan Siegel's credit card agreement redesign

This is what I'm talking about- make the information easy to read, to understand, and to use!

TED Blog: Alan Siegel's credit card agreement redesign

Here's Alan Siegel's TED talk. I love the simple comparison of the length of the Constitution vs. the Health Care bill- a simple attention-getter.