When surveyed, middle-aged consumers say that type sizes are often too small. Colors aren’t distinguishable. Fast moving objects blur. It frustrates them that they cannot easily read some information, and, in some cases, it jeopardizes their safety.

How can you make your information physically easier to read? It’s not that difficult. And as big-box retailer Target found out, it could make a life-and-death difference.

A troubling statistic

Almost 60 percent of prescription drugs are taken improperly. That disturbing finding came from a study commissioned by Target. The study only confirmed what one of the retailer’s designers, Deborah Adler, already knew from personal experience. Her grandmother had accidentally taken her grandfather’s prescription medicine and Adler knew how dangerous, even fatal that mistake could be. She was determined to redesign the decades-old amber pill bottle.

Her acclaimed ClearRX design features some of the best legibility practices. The labels are placed on a flat surface so you can read the information without turning the bottle. The larger type size and sans serif font are easier to read than smaller, serif fonts distinguished by their tails and curlicues. Information is presented in an intuitive hierarchy with the name of the medication at the top in large, capital, bold letters. On the back of the bottle are instructions and cautions in easy-to-read type. Another visual safety feature — color-coded neck rings, available in six primary colors — let consumers choose a color for each family member.

But pill bottles aren’t the only products that challenge people’s accessibility to information. Economic and ecological trends to reduce packaging are forcing many companies to pack more instructions, more cautions and more regulatory requirements in less and less space. And all of us can cite times when the type on everything from outdoor boards to PowerPoint® slides to magazine ads, Web pages or newspaper classifieds was too much work to read … so we didn’t.

Ten ways to improve legibility

What can you do to make it easier for customers and prospects to read your information? We turned to Lighthouse International, a non-profit organization that for more than 100 years has helped people of all ages who are at risk for, or are experiencing some vision loss. Here are some best practice guidelines to apply to your printed communications:

• Text should be printed with the highest possible contrast. Black on white works. However, as people age it often is easier for them to see light (white or yellow) letters on a dark (black) background for short blocks of text. Avoid contrasts of red and black; contrasting red versus green can also be problematic.

• Printed material is generally more readable in black and white. The safest colors to use for all people, including those with color blindness, are black, white, gray, followed by blue and yellow. If, for aesthetic or other reasons, you need to use different colors, use them for larger or highlighted text such as in headlines or titles. 

  Bright colors can cause an afterimage for normal-sighted people. When you place two bright colors next to each other, those afterimages can interfere with each other and create color vibration. You’ll want to avoid: red/green, blue/orange, green/magenta, yellow/cyan, magenta/blue, yellow/orange, green/blue.

You can avoid the vibration by placing a pastel or dark shade between the two brighter colors.

• People prefer 14-point to 12-point type size. A study conducted by Wichita State University (PDF) found that as people age, they could read 14-point serif or sans serif fonts easier and faster than 12-point serif or sans serif fonts. Lighthouse International recommends 16- to 18-point fonts for materials read by people with low vision or vision impairments.

• Make leading at least 120 to 130 percent of the point size. Leading is the spacing between lines of text. Keeping it at least 120 to 130 percent of the point size helps people find the beginning of the next line.

• Avoid complex, decorative or cursive fonts. If you must use them, save them for emphasis only. It’s best to use standard serif or sans serif fonts that have easily recognizable characters. If you must use a smaller type size than the reader’s visual acuity, choose a sans serif font.

• Choose Roman. Little research has been done to determine the legibility of one font over another. However there is some evidence that in printed materials a Roman font, using upper and lower cases, is more readable than italics or condensed.

• Give letters more space. As their vision changes, people often have trouble reading text when the letters are spaced too closely together. Give letters breathing room. Monospaced fonts tend to be more legible than proportionally spaced fonts.

• Widen those margins. If your material is bound, give your pages extra-wide binding margins so your readers can hold the volume flat. Spiral bindings help, too. It’s easier for Baby Boomers to use magnifying devices on flat surfaces.
• Reduce glare. Glossy stock can make it tougher to read your information. Choose low-gloss or matte-finish papers.
• Stand out. If you offer a series of books, pamphlets or publications, avoid sameness. Choose distinctive colors, sizes and cover formats to make each one stand out.

You can read more about improving print legibility in these two Lighthouse International online pamphlets:

Effective Color Contrast

Making Text Legible

Quick tips for your next presentation

Another communication media that often frustrates Baby Boomers are PowerPoint® presentations. You can apply many of the best legibility practices for printed material to your slides. The University of Texas offers these guidelines:

• Use the biggest fonts realistically possible on each slide. Small fonts are difficult to read.
• Choose sans serif. In the projection process, letters lose some of their sharpness. Sans serif fonts hold their shape better.
• Light text on a dark background is easiest to read, especially when projected. Recommended color choice: white text on a dark blue background.
• Keep the background simple. Busy backgrounds make text difficult to read.
• Avoid red. Red text is difficult to see.
• Avoid ALL CAPS. Use upper and lower case letters.

Make your Web site a champion for accessibility

As more and more people with vision difficulties and other disabilities turn to the Internet for information, Web designers are making sites more accessible. Here’s how you can make your site easier to read and use.

• Select sans serif fonts. Verdana, Arial and Helvetica make great default fonts on electronic media.
• Be color/contrast conscious. Using a bright color or textured background can add excitement to your Web page. It also can make it more difficult to read. Stick to the print guidelines above to improve legibility (dark text on light colors or very subtle textured backgrounds). Then run your site through a color-blind test. There are several sources on line, here are two:

Test color schemes

Test Web pages and images

• Keep it simple. Avoid information overload. Provide concise instructional text.
• Make links obvious and consistent. Display links, for example, with blue underlining. Increase the redundancy of your links (for example, make text and bullet links) so your readers are more likely to reach their target.
• Use standards-compliant code that is friendly for screen readers and other browser plug-ins used by visitors with disabilities.

How well do your printed materials and Web site meet these legibility best practices? Taking steps to improve your communications may not have as serious implications as changing the legibility of a prescription bottle, but those steps could lead to more sales and fewer customer service calls — and you’ll see the benefits of doing that on your bottom line.

Need better results? Designing print materials, presentations and Web sites that are easier to read is one of the business communications solutions we’ve provided over the past 25 years. To explore some innovative ways to reach your audience, e-mail Matt Harlow or call 800-800-9547.

So what can you do to start positive chatter? How do you get people e-mailing and blogging about why they like your product?

Three things you need to understand about buzz.

Before you have visions of rivaling Hotmail’s buzz success of 0 to 12 million subscribers in 18 months, there are three things you need to understand:

1. Your product must have an inherent value to get people talking. Whether you’re introducing a cure for cancer or a widget that cuts assembly costs by 10%, your product has to excite your customers or prospects before they’ll talk about it. Prior to your product launch, take time as a team to identify your product’s inherent value.

   If there are different values to different market segments, keep your messages simple and targeted. Don’t try to save money by combining them into one mega-message. Too much information will garble the message and fizzle the buzz the further out it travels.

2. Be realistic about how fast buzz spreads. The Internet moves information along faster and less expensively than traditional marketing methods. But Hotmail’s wildfire success doesn’t happen often. That’s because you and I are usually willing to listen to our friends’ or trusted colleagues’ recommendations, but we don’t often act on them right away. And there’s no guarantee that as “cool” as this new product sounds, you will push the “Forward” icon on your e-mail to spread the word to additional friends.

   Another reason buzz slows down is that most of us operate within small circles. An engineer may share a “great find” with members of her project team. But if your product also has value to the marketing guys down the hall, don’t expect that engineer to tell them about it. And, unless she’s actively connected through a professional or trade association, it’s not likely word about your “cool product” will spread outside her department.

   Realistically, overnight buzz success is more often over-five-years success. But there are ways to jump start it and keep it moving…

3. Create activities that accelerate the process. Buzz is a game of strategy and the most successful word-of-mouth marketing is approached from multiple fronts.
   

   Work with your influencers.

   Early adopters, opinion leaders and evangelists in your industry/market are important to word-of-mouth marketing. But don’t count on them to do all the work for you. For one thing, not everyone who falls into those categories is an influencer.

   Many companies assume that happy customers are influential in their networks. While you should include satisfied customers in your referral programs and special events, everyone doesn’t have marketing pull within his or her circle. Those who do have pull may prefer to keep your new product to themselves so they can maintain a competitive edge. Similarly, early adopters may be too “out there” to have credibility among the average members in their networks.

   The best use of your buzz time and energy is to identify the opinion leaders within your industry. You’ll find them in your trade media and associations or market analyst firms. Be sure to tap the influence of the “cool people” within your company, too. Next, strategize how you’ll introduce your product to the opinion leaders. Print, direct mail, e-mail, broadcast, out-of-home media, Web advertising, the opinion leader’s blog, special events, activities at trade shows and carefully orchestrated PowerPoint presentations all are potential ways to reach these key influencers. But remember, opinion leaders don’t automatically adopt every new product they come across. They can be early rejecters as easily as early adopters. So strategically prepare every communication with them and know when offering exclusivity will give you the most buzz leverage.

   Buzz online. Offline.

   Online technology is a powerful tool to spread buzz beyond your key influencers, but it’s not an isolated medium. How many times have you read something online, then mentioned it to someone face-to-face or over the phone and promised, “I’ll e-mail you that link”? Or you’ve read something in a magazine and e-mailed a friend to check out the publication? Successful buzz comes from conversations generated by a combination of traditional and non-traditional communication tools. When strategizing your buzz, create those combinations. Hotmail’s success wasn’t just a word-of-mouth strategy. Their success was fueled by ads strategically placed in college newspapers around the country.

   Product testing.

   Once you’re confident that you’ve worked out most of the bugs from your beta version, give it to select opinion leaders and industry journalists who review products for testing or a sneek peak. Send a personalized letter to these key influencers to invite them to try the product before it goes public. This works especially well with a journalist working on a story about new technology in your industry or an opinion leader blogging about the same. Make sure the journalist or opinion leader understands when your product will be released. After they test it, invite them to the launch and then send them the final product. This can lead to timely follow-up endorsements in future stories or on their blogs.

   Coin a phrase.

   One way to get people talking is to interject a new phrase into influential people’s lexicon. For instance, when you are searching the Internet, you “Google” it (see sidebar for a story about how many actually do). “Googling” entered every day phraseology when hip writers at New York magazine, the Los Angeles Times and the Observer caught on that influencers in the single dating scene were using Google to check out their dates’ online histories. The writers called the practice “Googling” which helped to rocket the search engine to its popular status.

   Fun=Buzz

   Most cities have celebratory/commemorative/charity events that draw key influencers. The same can be said within industrial circles where must-attend trade shows or gala events attract decision makers and media that stimulate buzz. If your product ties to the event, call the organizers and offer to help. Include your product in a show bag or as part of the decorations.

   Another show technique is to add a watermark to the sleeves of hot coffee cups or on your product give-away. Show visitors can read the watermark at kiosks which link them to your Web site and special show coupons, instant prizes, discounts or offers. People will buzz about this “cool” technology if the value of the reward is worth the effort to get it.

   If you plan a separate event to launch your product, keep three things in mind. First, strategically choose your product launch location. People are much more likely to go to trendy or must-visit places. Even if you don’t have a “cool place” nearby or within your travel budget, brainstorm places that have quirky tie-ins to your product or sites that locals and area journalists don’t normally get a chance to see inside.

   Second, make the event fun and exciting, otherwise no one, including you, will want to come. The most successful events are creative, visual and unique. In a fun atmosphere, hold a contest pitting yesterday’s technology with your new technology. Take video of your launch highlights and post it on your Web site or circulate it on the Internet to your customers. If it’s entertaining and has value they’ll pass it along.

   Third, pick the day and time of your event wisely. Tuesday evenings are often your best bet. Most journalists who write for weeklies have Wednesday deadlines. Mondays are tough to get people to attend events. Later in the week, you compete with fast-filling social calendars. Before finalizing the date, research what other newsworthy events are happening the same time as yours. The chances of your event getting coverage increase if you pick a slow media day.

Expect the importance of buzz to increase

As we post this, people are inventing easier ways for people to communicate with each other throughout the world. That means buzz marketing will keep increasing in importance. At Perry Ballard Incorporated we track those trends and marketing opportunities and develop our own fun and cost-effective ways to create buzz for our clients. To explore some innovative ways to reach your audience, e-mail Matt Harlow or call 800-800-9547.

In situations like these, photographic images have their limitations. But that doesn’t mean you can’t give a clear picture of what needs to be understood.

Draw attention to details and save millions of dollars

Whirlpool Corporation once used professional studio photography to illustrate how to properly install its appliances. These were no glamour kitchen and laundry room images. They required close-up photos of specific wiring connections, lighting narrow crevices of the product and trying to distinguish one gray part from another.

Several of these images were extremely important. As the cautions and warnings said, improper procedure could seriously injure or kill you.

An evaluation of Whirlpool call center logs showed that customers and installers were asking the same installation questions over and over. So PBI recommended replacing the photographs with large overview line drawings to orient installers and detail drawings to clarify small steps. The “language” of the drawings was universally understood in every country in which Whirlpool marketed its products.

Initial redesign of the instructions saved Whirlpool Corporation over $1 million in customer-instruct costs the first year and cut the per-part cost of millions of instructions by 25 cents each.

Whirlpool switched from using photographs to line art over a decade ago. While they have continuously improved their instructions, one thing has not changed even with recent advances in photographic technology. Line drawings remain the clearest way to communicate worldwide the proper way to install Whirlpool appliances.  

Know when to go back to the drawing board

Drawings have been used to communicate ideas since the days of cave dwellers, but that does not mean they are antiquated.

Today, technical illustrations:

• Let you see at a glance all the planets in our solar system, the geologic layers of the earth, the topography of the ocean floor, cutaways of the world’s tallest buildings or the structure of an atom.
• Distinguish the exterior or internal workings of a monochromatic product, using ink colors or shading to differentiate parts.
• Trace pathways of surgical equipment or drug delivery in the human body or within cells.
• Create step-by-step visual reference for assembling, packaging, installing, operating, maintaining or repairing products, equipment or procedures.
• Emphasize or minimize specific sections or systems in manufacturing facilities.
• Obscure proprietary information.
• Pinpoint very small parts hidden behind larger components.
• Diagram new technologies when no physical prototype exists.
• Demonstrate energy flow, mechanical movement, interaction and other engineering processes.
• Combine two or three steps that may not occur simultaneously or may occur instantly thousands of miles apart.

All the above are too expensive, if not impossible, to communicate with film or video.

Prevent lost sales

In almost every company storage room, consumer garage, basement or attic there are under-used and unused products collecting dust. The reason: reading the instructions takes the owners or operators too much time and effort trying to figure out how to assemble, operate, adjust, maintain or repair them. That frustration rarely leads to repeat sales and often generates negative remarks in the marketplace.

Many companies have no idea what this poor communication is costing them in lost revenue. The first step to recovering money from lost sales is to determine what questions are most frequently asked of customer service, sales or technical assistance representatives. Next, see whether any questions can be traced to unclear graphics or wording used in marketing or technical materials. By clarifying even one or two points, companies can paint a much brighter future in sales and customer loyalty.

Need better results? Technical illustrations are just one business communications solution we’ve provided over the past 25 years. To explore some innovative ways to reach your specific sales communications goals, e-mail Matt Harlow or call 800-800-9547.

Ideas are our product. We work to analyze your markets, isolate your key brand benefits and send clear, focused messages right to your target audience. Messages that build your brand image and achieve what you’re really looking for … measurable results. We call it Communication with insight.^sm