

You should feel pain when unclear - sivers
http://sivers.org/unclear

======
dbul
For the email situation, why wouldn't you just send it out to 100 customers to
get a sample of confusion? Reply to the 10 people who were confused, fix the
problems, repeat.

Same goes for websites. People send in "HN please review my site" all the
time.

~~~
Ixiaus
That's a trial and error process of proof reading your writing. Inefficient
IMHO. A solid approach would be clarity of writing through _lucid_ and
_cogent_ thought; if your thinking is clouded so is your writing.

It never hurts to read aloud your email to be sure it "sounds" right but that
is, I assume, something everyone practices before they post, email, or submit.

~~~
Periodic
That's basically using an audience of 1. Starting with yourself and checking
if it sounds right. After that, you'd probably bounce it to a few people in
the office, see what they think. They might pick up on something that sounds
clear to you, but doesn't make sense to other people.

Finally, you would want to bounce it to a few customers. Everyone inside the
company is going to have a similar set of knowledge and assumptions when they
look at the email, the only way to really be sure is to send it out.

I don't think he's saying you should write down some random thoughts and test
them, but rather as a final proof-reading step before sending it out to
everyone.

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praptak
There are cases when you don't need a huge audience to feel pain when unclear.

 _'An old blacksmith realized he was soon going to quit working so hard. He
picked out a strong young man to become his apprentice. The old fellow was
crabby and exacting. "Don't ask me a lot of questions," he told the boy. "Just
do whatever I tell you to do." One day the old blacksmith took an iron out of
the forge and laid it on the anvil. "Get the hammer over there," he said.
"When I nod my head, hit it real good and hard." Now the town is looking for a
new blacksmith.'_

------
terrellm
As Ben Franklin said, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure".

~~~
ahoyhere
Also, "Fart proudly."

------
randomwalker
Ah! This finally explains why Sivers' posts are never more than about 100
words long :-)

~~~
sivers
I used to post longer pieces that looked at a subject from a few different
angles. They didn't seem to be getting through to many people.

Maybe because a quick glance at a longer article make you say, "I'll read that
later when I have more time." (At least that's what I often do.)

When I started breaking up each point into its own separate short post, they
started getting more response, retweets, comments, etc. Maybe because it
passes the GTD "under 2 minutes" test?

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fendale
I have often though this in work project emails to a much smaller audience
(under 20 people). If I get one person replying back to me asking to clarify
something, then I have failed in some way or another in my explanation, so I
always read everything more than once.

I have noticed that many of our off-shore contractors, where English isn't
their first language are prone to sending unclear emails - it's actually quite
frustrating going through several replies to get to the bottom of it, and it
often causes things to be delayed unnecessarily. If only everyone thought so
carefully before sending the email!

~~~
pyre
> _where English isn't their first language_

> _If only everyone thought so carefully before sending the email!_

Those specific unclear emails be be due less to lack of care, and more easily
attributed to their having English as a second language.

~~~
btilly
However excess care can compensate for English as a second language.

~~~
mbrubeck
And this goes both ways. _You_ should take excess care when writing to someone
in a language in which they are not completely fluent.

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bbg
Good points, but...

 _You should feel pain when unclear_

I had to follow the link to find out what he meant by "when unclear." It's
ambiguous between "express yourself unclearly" and "perceive something
unclearly," which is a pretty big difference.

Actually, my first thought was the character in some Woody Allen (?) movie who
just won't come into focus. It jeopardizes his career as an actor.

------
rw
It aids clear thinking to habitually demand immaculate precision in your
speech. It's not just for mass-emails or public-facing websites--it helps you,
too.

