Traveling to around new cities on public transport is an interesting experience for a multitude of reasons. I spent several minutes yesterday standing in front of the ticket machine in Seattle trying to understand if I wanted an ordinary return ticket or an e-purse. (The machine issued my change as 15 $1 coins which caused every shop assistant I paid later in the day to say: oh, you’ve been on the light rail today!).

There was no explanation as to what an e-purse was and no staff to ask, and yet the machine required me to make that decision. I’m sure the people who made the machine, the one who designed the screens, the one who designed the instructions all thought there was sufficient information for customers to make a good decision, but they were wrong.

Whenever we create instructions or directions, we need to work with the people who will need to understand them. Whether it’s members of the public, or our directs when we’re delegating, it’s no use us being sure that the instructions make sense. It has to be clear to the people who need to enact our instructions.