Pet Peeve: Are Your User Research Reports Passive?
Here's a little pet peeve I'd like to get off my chest: I hate passive voice in research reports, metrics updates, or in fact any kind of business communication.
What's passive voice? Here's a comparison with active voice:
Active voice: Sally is reading the RSS feed.
Passive voice: The RSS feed is being read by Sally.
Active voice almost always works better with your readers, since with passive voice it often sounds like you're trying to hide something or obfuscate an issue.
For a details, see [url of full report]
Most recommendations for the US curling area have already been made, improving the user experience in several key areas.
But the study found that customers who use the non-US subsites may encounter broken links or dead-end paths. The report recommends simplifying the registration process and ensuring that the curling areas on non-US sites are more consistent and error free.
One piece of good news: International customers looking for curling are likely to be impressed with the quality of the information they read and find it helpful in making buying decisions.
For a details, see [url of full report]
Technorati Tags: Grammar Web-Design CustomerExperience
Tunes: 73: Dick Haymes: Blue Skies
What's passive voice? Here's a comparison with active voice:
Active voice: Sally is reading the RSS feed.
Passive voice: The RSS feed is being read by Sally.
Active voice almost always works better with your readers, since with passive voice it often sounds like you're trying to hide something or obfuscate an issue.
Example
Here is a very simple example from one of our internal newsletters that shows how changing from passive to active voice makes an article easier to read (I have substituted "curling" for the thing the site actually does, since embarassingly we're stil fixing one of the problems mentioned):BEFORE (Passive):
International Sun Curling Sites Informative, but Inconsistent
Three studies on Sun curling sites have been performed, one each on the US, Netherlands, and Singapore sites. The US site was tested several months ago and most recommendations have already been made to the site, improving the user experience. On the international sites, information is seen as informative and positive, but somtimes broken links or paths lead to dead ends cause struggles for the customer. The sites should be made more consistent, error free, and steps to lead the customer to and through registration should be simplified. Issues for process improvement regarding global usability execution were also addressed separately.For a details, see [url of full report]
AFTER (Active):
International Sun Curling Sites Informative, but Inconsistent
Sun is making some improvements to Sun's curling sites based on feedback from customers in usability studies. Over the past several months, we've run studies with customers using the US, Netherlands, and Singapore curling subsites.Most recommendations for the US curling area have already been made, improving the user experience in several key areas.
But the study found that customers who use the non-US subsites may encounter broken links or dead-end paths. The report recommends simplifying the registration process and ensuring that the curling areas on non-US sites are more consistent and error free.
One piece of good news: International customers looking for curling are likely to be impressed with the quality of the information they read and find it helpful in making buying decisions.
For a details, see [url of full report]
Technorati Tags: Grammar Web-Design CustomerExperience
Tunes: 73: Dick Haymes: Blue Skies
