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Subject:writing to different needs From:Michele Davis <michele -at- krautgrrl -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 03 Jan 2001 12:54:57 -0600
OK, its obvious by the hubbub I generated that I wasn't clear about what
I wanted to talk about. I've been thinking a lot about what happened
with the cheesy mac experience and two 10 year olds fluent in English.
Have people noticed that our Hispanic population in America is growing
exponentially? How does this affect our writing if we are in a mass
market industry like food, automotive parts, etc?
The VCR discussion after the holidays alerted me to the fact that we as
writers may need to break our instructions down into easier to
understand formats that include better design.
The Kraft example is just one. Take a look at a mac-n-cheese box. They
cram the instructions on the side, which is skinny and cramped. The
entire back of the box is a marketing piece: "After school or
anytime..." and a huge picture of a box of Easy Mac.
Think in terms of someone whose native language isn't English---wouldn't
it be more appropriate to dump the marketing pitch and delineate the
instructions in a nice design that indicates the differences between
low-fat production, stove top production, and microwave production?
How as writers can we be more sensitive to people whose primary language
isn't English?
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