Blog Posts About: signs

I don't often look to bathrooms, much less camping toilets for great communication, but this is an exception.  

In many state-maintained campgrounds in Washington State (and elsewhere), there are "vaulted toilets" with no running water.  Like an outhouse, everything ends up in underground pit that must be maintained.  This presents a problem.  Campers sometimes use the toilet as a trash can, which makes for a difficult situation for the people who need to remove the waste.

Inside these toilets are signs that are meant to help address this problem and I think they are remarkably effective because they explain the situation.  These signs work because they answer two important questions:

1. What do you want me to do?

2. Why does that make sense?

In our everyday lives, a lot of communications focus on question #1 - "what do you want me to do?"  Separate your recycling. Eat this food. Don't touch that.  These can be effective, but the real effectiveness comes when the answer to question #2 becomes clear to the audience.  By answering "why does this make sense?" the sign becomes an explanation - it becomes more understandable and reasonable.

Here's the toilet sign answering question #1, What do you want me to do?:

Alone, this could help, but they didn't stop there.  They added an extra point that I think makes all the difference.  Here's the answer to question #2, Why does that make sense?:

I believe by answering question #2, the sign makes people motivated to do the right thing.  It has context and foundation.  There is a valid reason you should not put trash in the toilet - it makes pain for others. Most people, given a choice, don't want to create pain for others and it's a motivating factor.

In conclusion...

It's easy enough to go through our professional lives trying to motivate others by answering question #1. "I need you to do this." But I hope that you'll remember the toilet sign above.  By remembering to answer question #2, by explaining why it makes sense, you can give people a way to see that it's understandable, reasonable and something they may want to do. 

NOTE: If you're interested in learning in-depth about the skill of explanation and how to make Common Craft Style videos, check out our online courses at the Explainer Academy.

Me (to the friendly TSA ID checker):  Do I have to remove my laptop computer?

TSA Employee: Yes, you do.

Me: It's not listed on the sign

TSA Employee: Well, it's the most important thing to remove.

Me: But not important enough to be on the sign?

TSA: It's supposed to be on there, the people that printed it messed up (rolls eyes).

The TSA folks have hard jobs and I appreciate what they do. However, it doesn't exactly give me a safe feeling when the instructions for moving through the line efficiently are "messed up" and no on seems to care. 

If making signs in Chinese characters was my job, I would be very, very bad at it.  However, I might hire someone who knows the language well before erecting a permanent sign at a major tourist destination.  For a long time, this didn't happen in China and we snapped the photos below before they invested in changing the signs for the Olympics. 

 The guy in this photo is one of the most interesting people I've ever met.  He's the blind adventurer Miles Hilton-Barber.(notice the broken cane, his favorite schtick) Photo is from the Three Gorges Dam. He did not turn over.

I never could figure out why they wanted to protect the railings. This was at the Summer Palace, where I felt compelled to write a rant about tourism and tour groups. 

An earnest request at Yellow Mountain. Most tourist travel in China (outside the cities) is controlled.  Most people are herded onto busses and kept in a group, led by a flag-bearing guide who speaks English and may use a megaphone. We are very independent travelers and grew quite tired of these guides. 

 At the Three Gorges Dam.

I didn't take it as a compliment.

I think they meant "crab"

4 Stars!

And finally, not a sign, but an illustration of a difference in culture.  I present to you, on the busy streets of Beijing - a car-to-car turtle salesman.

Reading back through this, it may appear that we didn't like China.  I would say that the tourist experience in China, compared to other places, was not as enjoyable.  We were only there a month, which is far too short of a time to know if we really like it or not.  We left the country wondering what would change before the Olympics and what Westerners would say upon returning.