First, Do No Harm to Your Reader
Audrey Aiken
Talkoot Creative Director
Last week I drove up, up, up the circuitous mountain road to OHSU medical center for a routine cancer screening (just kidding: there’s no such thing as a routine pancreatic cancer screening; there’s only an astronomically expensive MRI). After inadvertently entering and exiting the patient drop-off, then the emergency parking lot, then exiting the complex entirely and making a U-Turn, I finally park my car and find the elevator that spits me out on an unmarked street. Anyone who knows me is aware of my comically baffling sense of direction. But I’m telling you, I don’t like being late, and I WAS PAYING ATTENTION.
So there I stood, a college graduate with decades of experience Being an Adult in the World, utterly flummoxed by such signs as: “Notice Zone 1,” “Staff and Emergency Exit Use Only,” and “Notice This Is Not a Medical Facility.” I guess go straight? Which led me right into a lobby with nothing but cream-colored emergency-only exit doors. I finally found my way to an information desk (lord help the elderly or truly infirm in this place) where a nice person explained that MRI’s are on floor 10, adding: “and just so you know, it seems like this is floor 1, but it’s 9.”
It goes without saying that most everyone coming to a hospital arrives with some level of anxiety, ranging from the inconvenient (no spaces left in the garage) to the catastrophic (a 4-year-olds’ cancer diagnosis). And yet as I’m wandering the halls with an IV trailing from my arm in search of diagnostic imaging, I can’t help but feel that this hospital and I have become adversaries. Here, there will be no coddling. No hand holding. No reassurance. Listen lady, the hospital seemed to be saying, if you don’t understand “South Block Entrance” or “Combined Assessment,” that’s on you.
I take my seat in the waiting area and stem the urge to address the room as a whole with, “This place is effed, right? Did you just get as lost as I did?” But they were all placidly scrolling their phones, as if they hadn’t just barely survived a serious wayfinding ordeal. Why are they all so calm? Are they pretending that was normal?
I’m fairly certain they were all just as baffled as I was and just didn’t want to show it. After all, we’re at OHSU, a premier academic health institution where gene editing and stem cell transfer and precision oncology are going on. If a few patients get turned around in the stairwells, surely it’s our own fault. And that dynamic is no accident.
In places like hospitals and courthouses, banks and government agencies, the language used on the walls and in documents is purposely and tirelessly confusing. Words are used to highlight and underscore the hierarchy between doctor and patient, attorney and client. The former knows important stuff, the latter needs someone more intelligent than them to take care of the important stuff. We hire and pay large sums of money for experts to navigate that which we cannot, and coded language reinforces and justifies that hierarchy. Language doesn’t simply explain expertise, it performs it. Like a black robe or a white lab coat, words are a costume of the profession.
Here’s an example:
Doctor: The patient presents with acute idiopathic urticaria, likely precipitated by an unknown allergen
Translation: You suddenly broke out in hives. We don’t know what caused it.
Even when a doctor admits she’s at a loss, the diagnosis feels authoritative. Her convoluted statement accomplishes two things at once: reduces the patient’s understanding and reinforces who’s in charge.
One more:
Attorney: This agreement contains an indemnification provision allocating liability under specified contingencies.
Translation: This part says who has to pay if something goes wrong.
This lawyer is hiding the what ifs in a worst-case scenario with the totally cryptic “indemnification provision” and “specified contingencies.” In order to understand a sentence like this, and the rest of the document it came from, the reader requires a translator. And that translator holds the power.
The Internet and more recently AI have helped democratize language by giving us tools to self-translate. Text that was once a sea of question marks is now only a chat away from clarity. (Have you asked ChatGPT to summarize Apple’s Terms and Conditions in three sentences yet?) These tools have increased consumers’ expectations of language. We want plainspoken. We want conversational. We want accessible. Run your MyChart notes through an LLM enough times and you can’t help but get peeved at The System that made jargon the standard in the first place. Our tolerance for confusing text has plummeted.
Here in the world of online product marketing, shopping is reading. And shoppers’ tolerance for confusing language waned long ago. The number of minutes a shopper will spend deciphering words is zero minutes. Two brands can write about identical products. Both descriptions can include features and benefits. The brand that writes with simplicity and clarity while making the experience of reading about that product feel relatable and engaging wins.
As a creative director I often tell my writing team that it isn’t just what you’re saying, it’s how the words make the reader feel. What kind of experience are they having? Do they feel connection or fatigue? Are they excited or bored? Is your language making them feel … stupid? The experience a reader is having while reading a piece of copy can be as persuasive as the content itself.
Take for example a study that was done several years ago at the University of Michigan. Students were asked to read instructions for an exercise routine. One group received the instructions in a clear, easy-to-read font, while another group received it in an ornate, barely legible script. The study revealed that the students who got the easy font thought the workout would take less time and effort and were therefore much more willing to do it, even though the instructions were identical in both versions. Because the experience of reading felt easy, the workout itself seemed easy.
Product marketing is similarly about persuading a reader to act. Sometimes we’re explaining something that’s fairly easy to grasp, like a pair of white cotton socks. And other times it’s much more confusing or expensive, like health insurance. If we want customers to buy a product, the language we use can be persuasive based on its clarity and simplicity alone. Opting for shorter sentences and simpler words conveys empathy for your reader and, importantly, it sells.
What does clear, accessible language mean if your brand exists in a niche industry, say Asian hair care, or Pacific Northwest mountain biking? That was a trick question. When it comes to writing, there are no niche industries. Whoever you are, whatever you’re selling, you can assume deep, heartfelt understanding by customers who love you and next to no understanding from strangers. You can and should appeal to both, but never forget that strangers are the shoppers you need to persuade to grow.
Simplicity, by the way, is not the same thing as dumbing down copy. Shoppers are particular, and novices especially want to learn. They want to know the amount of give on the back suspension of a downhill bike. They want to know why a rinse that works on Japanese hair leaves Korean locks feeling heavy. We can use simple language to convey complex ideas, it just takes more effort. Being an expert on your products is a beautiful thing, but all that expertise is useless when your shopper loses patience with how you’re explaining yourself.
Attention spans continue to shrink. Knowing this, our language must continue to adapt. It’s not enough to describe a product. Your language must engage the reader, make them feel reassured and cared about. The experience of spending time on your brand’s PDP should feel like: Oh wow, they get me. This is easy; I even just learned something.
For decades brands could comfortably assume slapdash jargony product content would make customers feel impressed and curious, rather than impatient and annoyed. Now LLMs recycle that ocean of content, mimicking the marketing speak and echoing all those old habits. As LLMs flex their strengths of speed and volume, empathy and originality will become increasingly valuable. When the AI flood recedes, what will be left are the brands that win customer loyalty with clarity, simplicity and a deep understanding of their desires and motivations.
Back at the hospital, I’ve exited the MRI tube and am on my way back down to the first (ninth) floor for blood work. I feel like a lost first grader dragging my winter coat behind me like a blankie and holding my blood work order in my sweaty fist like a permission slip. I’m wandering around and around looking for a sign that says blood work. Or blood draw. Or lab? Maybe lab work. Or lab testing? I’m about ready to give up when I think to pull out my phone and Google it, then join the line for Outpatient Phlebotomy Services.