Designors (a recycled post)

Many years ago when I edited Information Design Journal, I included a column of short thoughts that I called Sorts (a typographers' in-word meaning a piece of printing type, particularly an obscure symbol or character). Tidying old papers, I came across one of these columns, and it occurred to me that this blog is just a continuation of that old series. So I thought I would recycle something from 1986:

"Graphic design has become big business, but a recent ad for a personal computer graph plotter indicates that graphic designers might have something of an image problem: it promises 'a complete studio at your fingertips - with no delays, no tantrums, no egos'. Now in a slick public relations move the Society of Industrial Artists and Designers is to drop the 'artists' bit, with its connotations of temperament and other-worldliness. I understand that it has voted to change its name to the Chartered Society of Designers, redolent of chartered accountants, surveyors and so on...

They might like to go further and consider the use of the '-or' suffix, whose prestigious associations were noted some time ago by the linguist Dwight Bolinger*. 'This is evidenced in the -or of expeditor (adopted after much discussion by the members of this profession), which has appeared also in advisor, publicitor, realtor and weldor'. The only one still to appear in my dictionary is 'realtor', which turns out to be a trade mark of the National Association of Realtors...

Bolinger himself managed to achieve distinction as a linguist without changing his own name to Bolingor. Any votes for designor? graphicor?"

*Bolinger DL (1946) 'Visual morphemes', Language, 22:333-340.

Should there be a wee comma there?

Andrew Belsey (he's my other reader) shares some quotes he's recently noted:

"Elsa Wilkins, age 6, of Annan, writing about "My Perfect Weekend" (Guardian Guide, 7 April 2007), said: "Then I go up, have a wee lie down and then jump on the bed (that gets mum up)". On first reading this I thought there should be a comma after "wee"!

"A recent magazine advertisement says "The Chrysler 300C, America's most awarded car" which prompts me to ask how many people has it been awarded to.

"I recently found this on a bookshop's website: "Store Description: Small country style internet business, all-ways ready to help a client, we deal in only quality book's, old and new". Would you buy a second-hand book from this shop?"


Well, I know I wouldn't buy vegetables from a greengrocer who wrote "bananas" not "banana's". It's all about context.

Got alight?

Following previous posts on this, I note that you can still get a light for the Planetarium at Baker St tube station.

Chandlery

I quoted a sailing manual in a post the other day, and I've been reading more. Much of the terminology is absolutely functional - you have to distinguish between ropes with different functions (halyards that pull sails up, sheets that control them, the painter that you tie the boat up with, and stays and shrouds that hold up the mast). And 'left' and 'right' don't really cut it when everyone on the boat is facing in a different direction. 'Port' and 'starboard' are relative to the boat itself, not the way you happen to be standing.

But it seems to me that quite a bit of nautical writing goes a little too far. It's the verbal equivalent of the gadgetry that boat owners love to buy. We love to rummage around for interesting pieces of kit - some of us want the high tech stuff, others are strictly traditional. But a lot of it is designed for selling not for using.

Verbal chandlery might describe words that are lovely to have, and to bring out from time to time, but which are not strictly necessary.

The best ones are made from wood and brass. Like the word 'witnesseth' that my solicitor included in a lease he's just drafted. Or the word 'thusly' that appeared twice in a student dissertation I've just marked.

Exit alight

A while back I commented on the quaint use of 'alight', meaning 'get off train'. As in the message at King's Cross underground station saying 'Alight for the Royal National Institute for the Blind' (geddit?).

At some point recently the message changed to 'exit for the Royal National Institute of Blind People'.

So farewell alight as exit enters. And exit 'for', and enter the more empowering 'of' and the more respectful 'people'.

Home grown jargon

Hearing about the new Simplification Centre at Reading, David Betts (a retired member of staff) has written to suggest we look to our own language. As he points out, since his time, "'Porters' have become 'Building Facilities Attendants'; 'Buildings Officer' has become 'Director of the Directorate of Facilities Management and Estates'; 'Wardens' have become 'Group Senior Resident Tutors'."

Fair comment. I'll get one of our Linguistic Communication Disambiguation Officers on to it straight away.

Pub spelling

Sign outside a bar in Reading: "Credit cards excepted". I think I know what they mean, but I suppose they could mean what they say.

Another sign outside a pub, this time in Dublin: "Help wanted. Apply wittin".

Role on phonetic spelling.

What's that in buses?

A reader complained to the BBC today about a report on the new terminal at Heathrow airport - he thought they had been patronising in describing its length as 'three football pitches' when we would be perfectly capable of visualising metres.

In the UK, we use double decker buses for length and height, and football pitches for length and area. We also use Nelson's columns for height, and Wales is our unit of large area. And, as Stephen Fry pointed out on the telly the other day, we use fahrenheit for heat ('it's in the nineties') but celsius for cold ('it's minus three').

Other countries have their own variants, and I remember thinking that it was odd that my Michelin guide to New York used Eiffel Towers to express the height of the Empire State Building. I thought, if they've bothered to translate it from French into English, why couldn't they translate the pictures too?

I've just googled this and found a rather nice translation utility: The Double-Decker Bus Calculator. You can use it to translate between preferred measures: for example it turns out that Wales is 401.138996 Manhattan Islands. Oddly enough, it omits Belgium (the metric equivalent to Wales).

Responsibility avoidance: how the passive voice helps

Easyjet wants an extra fiver for something called 'Speedy Boarding Plus'. Presumably this means you get to jump the queue in the boarding sprint. Here's how they explain it:

"Speedy Boarders get the widest choice of seats provided you’re at the gate when boarding starts. At certain airports we offer Speedy Boarding Plus which means you can check in at a dedicated priority desk. If you are bussed to the aircraft we can’t guarantee that you’re off the bus first."

We need a connective between the last two sentences: I think it means 'However, if you are bussed...'. In fact it sounds like people who pay the fiver get onto the bus first, which usually means they are last off.

Of course it would not be Easyjet's fault if you paid them a fiver and 'you are bussed'. In the passive voice, it just happens. No one makes it happen. It's just the way it is.

Good news! We putting up the price!

We buy our electricity on a green tariff from Good Energy, who buy only from renewable sources. They've just written to say they have put the price up, reflecting changes in the wholesale market... or something - there is a bit of gobbledegook about how the market works and how the price increase is nothing to do with them (and there's me thinking there's a direct wire from their windmill to my house).

The letter ends with a splendid piece of rhetoric: 'We hope that increases in price, although unwelcome, will have a positive outcome by helping households across the UK to treat electricity as the precious resource it is and to use it wisely'.

Perhaps they should have gone the whole hog, and entitled the letter: Great news! Electricity prices have gone up!

Design police

Thanks to Beth at the Brand Union for sending me this truly wonderful link to the Design Police*. It's obviously hit the spot because it's on practically every design blog - and has revealed one or two sense of humour failures, judging by some of the comments. This is just a close up of 5 pages of stickers.

*The Design Police are Stephen Woowat and Karl Goldstraw. There is an interview with them on FontShop's Unzipped blog.

I wonder if this doesn't represent a real insight into simple, engaging ways to represent good practice. Having said that, each rule invites the question 'why', and the answers would range from legibility research to simple 'nice boys/girls don't do that'. For example, using inch marks for quotations doesn't actually do anyone any harm, but it is a signifier of competence that people will judge you by – like using the wrong knife at dinner.

Inspired by the Design Police, I'm now speculating about repurposing road signs (not original, I know) to warn readers of problems ahead in complex writing. Here are some signs whose meaning I hope is clear:

Certain discrepancies

Standard Life wrote recently to tell us they are raising the management charge on our ISA. I'm trying to find the right adjective to describe their explanation of the reason for this:
"Standard Life Investments conduct regular reviews of their products. Following their most recent review, certain discrepancies came to light between their charging structure and those of their competitors."
Don't you just love the third person - nothing to do with us, it's them... although them is actually us. And obviously a discrepancy is a terrible thing. I'm so glad they've put it right. Happy to pay more. Wouldn't want a discrepancy. Oh no.

Virgin Media... we're watching you

Well we're not watching your TV service yet, actually, as the kit I need to connect in my new house hasn't arrived. The courier who tried to deliver my package left a printed note saying they had 'popped round'. For a cup of sugar, and a chat?

Judy Delin's 'Hello you' letter (see earlier post) should have warned me off this lot.

In order to arrange redelivery I had to call Virgin. Good thing was, it was only a couple of menu levels to reach what was apparently the right number. Bad thing was, they hung up on me every time. How about this for pseudo politeness: "we're still unusually busy, so instead of staying on the line you may like to give us a call later..." [cue the dial tone].

They are usually unusually busy, it seems.

"Labour kills off 'husbands' and 'wives'"

This was a story in the Mail on Sunday yesterday. Apparently the term 'partner' is now used in place of 'husband', 'wife' or 'spouse' on some HMRC forms. This is attributed by the paper to a socialist conspiracy to destroy marriage.

Well, actually it's used in the question 'Do you have a partner?' instead of something like 'Do you have a spouse, partner (defined as a person you are living with as if you are married) or civil partner?'. So this very probably points to a civil servant trying to save space and write in plain English. Do they really think the Prime Minister and his cabinet discuss the wording on a form?

The article also notes that on the Child Benefit form you are asked to select your title from 'Mrs, Miss, Ms, Mr', and attributes this sequence to a 'nod to feminism'. Well, no, actually. The legislation requires Child Benefit to be paid to the mother, unless the child is living with the father or other person. And most mothers are married women ('Mrs'), followed statistically by unmarried women ('Miss'). 'Mr' comes last because it is the least likely response to the question.

Word for the day: nocebo

The nocebo effect is the opposite of the better known placebo effect - Latin for 'I will harm' rather than 'I will please'. Just as dummy pills are known to produce beneficial results among around 25% of patients who believe them to be the real treatment, they also trigger side effects in many patients.

Interestingly for information designers, it's been suggested that lists of specific side effects in patient information leaflets (or web pages aimed at patients) may contribute to the effect.

And it turns out that the colour, size and shape of pills has long been known to influence their effectiveness: red, orange and yellow pills have a stimulant effect, while blue and green are more sedative. People expect pills for their heart to be red (but not necessarily heart-shaped, as far as I know).

Good reference on this is: Barsky et al (2002), Nonspecific medication side effects and the nocebo phenomenon. JAMA vol 287, 5, 622-627.

Hello, you - Our Ref: (KMM5896382I10596L0KM)

Judy Delin received an email with this title from Virgin Media about her cable TV account. A wonderful juxatposition of matey brand language and bureaucracy. You're not just a number. Well, you are.

The email welcomes her to her new provider, and concludes 'The whole adventure is just beginning'. Worrying, that phrase.

Orifices

I've bought a new radiator for our bathroom. The fitting guide is not so much instructional as liturgical: "Appoint on the wall the place of drilling the orifices... In the appointed places drill the orifices. The congregation shall stand."

Speaking of drilling, Plasplugs used to provide slightly superfluous instructions on using their drill bits. I think it was just so they could use the heading 'Boring instructions'.

An early bath for heads up, or a heads up on early doors

What am I on about? Phrases which arrive through slips of the tongue, and stick around. Too many metaphors, I know, but stay with me a moment.

An example is 'early doors' which is generally assumed to have originated with football manager Ron Atkinson - famous for his expressive but sometimes mangled English (see this nice fanclub website on 'Ronglish'. It is used to mean 'early on' but no one knows where the doors bit comes in.

In our own information design world, we come across the term 'heads up mapping', which refers to maps that are oriented not with north at the top, as is conventional, but so the direction you are facing is at the top. In the research environment, I have seen this referred to as 'forward up', and this makes more sense to me. But because it is the way maps are shown on heads-up displays in aircraft cockpits, the term has slipped across to refer to map as well as the display.

Personally I am not convinced that forward up mapping works best for everyone. But more on this another time.

An heck of an annoying use of 'an'

Something that brings out the grumpy old man in me, is the way journalists invariably use 'an' before the word 'historical'. "This summit represented an historical moment...".

My mother is from a generation who pronounces 'hotel' in a slightly French way ("I stayed in an 'otel") but she doesn't say "an Humphrey Bogart movie" or "an Hello magazine" or "an honey and peanut butter sandwich". Mind you should probably wouldn't ask for these last two - she's more likely to ask for "an Country Life" and "an cucumber sandwich".

Rite as yu spik

It's always good advice to 'write as you would speak'. Thanks to colleague Uwe Becker for this photo.

Affix affectation affliction

I don't think she'll mind me mentioning this because it was a triumph, but a group of us went to see (colleague and distinguished linguistics expert) Judy Delin's debut in stand-up comedy. She had some fun with the language you encounter on the tube ('Dogs must be carried', 'Use all available doors', 'Alight for the Royal Institute for the Blind').

What is it with railways and the word 'alight'. Do they get off (alight?) on quaint pomposity? And why don't they do the full Russell Brand? Alight from the carriage and perambulate towards the exit portal. Not forgetting to mind the gap and take all your personal belongings with you when you arrive in at the next station stop.

'Alight' has a distant cousin, 'affix'. For some reason, we stick stamps to personal mail, but affix them to business mail.

Octothorpe (you know what I mean)

A colleague’s been debating with a mobile phone company client how to refer to an old-fashioned steam telephone. They want to choose from ‘fixed line’ and ‘land line’, with a preference for the former. She asked for votes from users and ‘land line’ won by a mile. Needless to say, the client wants ‘fixed line’. Actually, a lot of people said ‘none of the above’ and generally refer to ‘home phone’ instead.

This reminds me of a debate we had with BT a long time back, over what to call the # key when it needs to be spoken out loud in voice menus. The international telecommunications standard specifies ‘square’ and BT insist on using that to this day. The debate even went to their usability lab in Martlesham, who backed 'square' ... hmm. We believe 'square' could be there because the standard was translated from another language and the term with it. We went out in the street with a phone and as you would expect, no one called that key ‘square’. A lot didn’t know what to call it, but if they had a name it was generally called ‘hash’. Musicians called it the sharp sign, and someone with computing training called it ‘gate’. In the US it is more generally called the ‘pound sign’ or ‘number sign’. There is an good Wikipedia entry with further names under the headword Number sign.

The most bizarre name for the # sign is Octothorpe. This apparently first appeared in the 60s or 70s, but there is disagreement about its origin. In Elements of Typographic Style (p. 282), Robert Bringhurst says that ‘in cartography, it is also a symbol for village: eight fields around a central square, and this is the source of its name. Octothorp means eight fields.’

Really? Type ‘octothorpe’ and ‘cartography’ into Google and all you get is dictionary definitions quoting Robert Bringhurst – nothing from a cartography source.

Another explanation is given by a retired AT&T engineer, Ralph Carlsen, that he and a colleague made it up, when they needed a word for the # key when developing touchtone phones.

I turn out not be the only person puzzled by this bizarre word. Here are just a couple of the various websites chasing its origin:
http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-oct1.htm
http://www.robertfulford.com/2005-06-14-octothorpe.html

Octothorpe is a truly bizarre phenomenon – a word that is never ever used for its notional meaning (ie, to refer to a telephone key), that has no real purpose or nuance to add, but that is in the OED (citing the daft ‘fields’ origin as a possibility), and whose origin is much discussed. At least one web dictionary I found claimed that there are variant spellings such as 'Octotherp', as if linguists had toured the country asking gnarled old telephone engineers for the terms that they and their forefathers had used for generations.

So my plan is to invent a new word for something, and get it in the OED. Any ideas?

More seriously, when you research something like this, it reveals the true limitations of the web – with its apparently authoritative websites packed with cut and paste repetitions of unsubstantiated information.

The soft snow of latin words

A nice quote, passed on to me by Abi Searle-Jones, who got it from A Word A Day (http://wordsmith.org/awad/):

A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the
outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language
is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared
aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted
idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such
thing as "keeping out of politics". All issues are political issues, and
politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and
schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer.
George Orwell, writer (1903-1950)

Reversed type for headings

Usability research sometimes shows that people are ignoring reversed headings. When reading aloud, they will often just skip the heading as if they haven't noticed it. This is probably an example of the figure-ground illusion (often illustrated using the famous candlestick-faces diagram).

You can see this at work in typography when lists are printed this way. I remembering seeing the football league table printed this way – it was very hard to read both the white and black type together. Look at the table to see what order Everton, Bolton, Reading and Newcastle are in.

But rather than dismiss reversed type as unusable, we should instead see this as a phenomenon we can use wisely to good effect. In fact it is most often used for navigation, where we are designing for a two stage reading process (find it, then read it). Here, we don't actually want everyone to read everything, so the figure-ground phenomenon actually supports the ignoring of irrelevant detail until the right section is found.

But just in case people do fail to read the headings, it's wise to repeat the content in the text that follows.

Hi! We're here for your furniture.

We've been helping a bank rewrite their debt collection letters. Like many modern brands, this bank has a tone of voice that's conversational and everyday. Much more so, actually, than most brands - in fact if we were to sincerely apply their brand tone of voice to the debt collection letters, we'd say 'cough up or we'll send the boys round'.

This project had a different approach from previous projects of this kind. Often, marketing departments like to keep the letters friendly at first and turn up the volume later, if the debt is still unpaid. But this can put people in danger of drifting into worse difficulties. Instead, if they are jolted into taking early action, they won't leave it until the debt is out of hand. That's the idea, anyway...

A new excuse for not taking enough exercise

Try this:

"Start by lying face down on the floor with your hands by your shoulders, the palm of your hands flat on the floor. Your feet should be about a foot (30cm) apart and when you push up to the top of the position you should keep your head in line with your body; it's easier to maintain this position by looking down. As you execute the push-up, pull your tummy button towards your back and squeeze your bottom muscles. Then lower down, about two inches (5cm) off the floor. This is the basic push-up. If, however, you are coming at this with no experience, you should do the push-up resting on your knees instead of your feet. Apply the same technique and keep your head in line with your back. To increase the difficulty of the exercise change the position of your hands. By moving your hands closer together, you'll feel the effort in the back of your arms as well as your chest. Or turn the palms of your hands on the floor so your fingers are facing each other; this will place greater emphasis on your chest muscles. Alternatively, if you really want to increase the intensity ask someone to apply a light pressure on your back. The added resistance will make the move harder and will develop the toning even quicker."

It's from a recent article in The Times by Gabby Logan (10.06.06).

A long time ago, spelling and punctuation were unstandardised. Now we're regarded as uneducated if we can't get it right. It would be nice to think that one day people will be writing to The Times about pieces like this one:

"Sir: I was dismayed to read the article on push-ups in yesterday's Times. As every schoolboy knows, procedural instructions should always be presented in numbered steps, with informative headings and a diagram."

Completeness vs clarity

We're working for a government department which is frequently lobbied to include extra information in guidance they give the public about their eligibility for money. It seems that every time advisers are asked by a member of the public about a situation that isn't in the guidance, they insist that it be added. As a result, the guidance is now overlong, hugely complex, and virtually unread by the people it's intended for. So it's no longer usable by the people it's for, who end up asking for advice...

A few years ago I copied this cartoon from somewhere - possibly Private Eye. Makes the point very well, I think.

(apologies if reproducing it here breaks a copyright rule - if the owner asks, I'll take it off).