June 2011 - Judy Gregory Writer

Gaining audience forgivement

What's the best way to ask audiences to forgive an error Say sorry and admit the error, of course!Last week I commented on how I had become a non-financial member of a professional association, because the association made it difficult for me to re-join I hadn't received a renewal invoice, and was given the impression (via email) that I needed to log onto the association's website and access the invoice myself It seemed as though the association expected me to take some effort to renew my...

Making things simple for audiences

Communicators are usually interested in motivating audiences to do something We want people to buy our products, use our services, read our copy, and believe our claimsTo motivate audiences, communicators often work hard to make the proposed action as simple as possible We construct messages and processes that make it easy to buy our products or sign up for our services The more work we make our audiences do, the less likely they are to take the action we're afterThat's probably why I'm now a...

Pictograph confusion

This week I used my credit card to pay for a parking meter It seemed like a straightforward enough process - follow the prompts on the screen, insert the credit card at the right moment, and it should be done Yet somehow, I managed to put my credit card in upside-down three times It wasn't until the machine cancelled my payment and I had to start again from Step 1 that I realised the mistake I was makingHere's the machine I was using:I could see by the shape of the machine that the strip on my...