Tl;dr: If you want to make any impact, write for the other side of the conversation. I write about the importance of user-centered communication constantly. It’s one of the core tenets of my communication philosophy; knowing who you’re speaking with. But why is it so important?
Thesis: User-centrism beats egocentrism in efficiency, efficacy, longevity, risk and issues management, and ROI, hands-down.
Core benefits of user-centric writing
There are several benefits of writing for your users, and I’m going to go over 3;
- Better learning and retention
- Stronger buy-in and less psychological resistance
- More usable and actionable
We’ll go over some foundational concepts and theories, a few core works that establish why this is important, and some good/bad examples. But nothing beats active learning; if you currently create products just to satisfy internal leadership, try A/B testing some user-centric messaging and see how it changes the conversation.
Better learning and retention
Meme
I am very obsessed with the ELM.
Benjamin Wilson
The Elaboration Likelihood Model? or ELM is a model of how human processing works; either through the central route or the peripheral route. Teeeechnically there’s probably a reflexive processing route which involves motor-neural reactions (like touching a hot stove and jerking your hand away faster than you can cognitively process what happened), but that’s not really important for communication, unless you’re writing copy about why hot stoves are bad. But heck, let’s put that into a table so we can compare the three-ish routes of processing;
| Central route | Peripheral route | Reflexive route (not canon) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What is it? | You actively think about ideas, facts, and opinions, and integrate your conclusions into your own mental model of reality. | You accept predetermined heuristics and emotional input, making decisions based on intuition and gut feelings. | Your nerves sense danger, causing a reaction before the nerve signal could even reach the brain. |
| Main mechanism? | Thinking / cognition | Emotion / intuition | Direct nerve reaction |
| Effects on ownership? | Significant, because the audience makes their own conclusions. | Very little, because another emotion can override the existing one. | Depends on how the experience is processed afterward. |
| Effects on recall? | Very positive. This causes the brain to make new connections between ideas; literally, integrated into the user’s cognition. | Neutral to slightly positive. Emotional states are often recorded as context by the brain. | Uncertain. I don’t touch hot stoves; there’s probably a correlation. |
| When to use? | When you need to encourage a behavioral change or teach. | When you need to stimulate a quick, temporary action. | Ideally, never. |
| How to use? | Rhetoric, procedural rhetoric, pedagogical inquiry | Use emotional appeals | Again, never. |
As I’ve written before, I am a person with a high need for cognition, so I prefer to always use the central route - that is, think things through. When someone uses a communication technique that applies the peripheral route - that is, emotional appeals, I become annoyed.
Why the central route is user-centric and the peripheral route is egocentric
The central route of processing is entirely dependent on the user to learn, whereas the peripheral route forces a foregone conclusion on the user. Central route processing is user-centric, because it considers the needs, background, uses, etc., of the user. Peripheral route processing is egocentric because it only considers you, not the other half of the conversation.
Meme
Egocentrism is bad.
Benjamin Wilson
Let’s talk climate change communication. Fear appeals, a long-term favorite of many communicators, do, in fact, create a strong emotional reaction in audiences. However, they don’t spur long-term change. Fear appeals are an example of egocentric communication; they do not consider the user’s circumstances, needs and motivations.
Admittedly, creating messages that help your audiences think through and come to a conclusion is more costly for you as the sender; user-centric messages require more effort on your part. They do, however, lead to better learning and retention, and better ROI over time. A single high-cost message that works vs. hundreds of low-cost messages that don’t; works always gets better ROI than doesn’t work.
Stronger buy-in and less psychological resistance
One-size-fits-all communication is inherently egocentric, often ethnocentric, and in many cases, parochial. Let’s talk about some of these barriers.
Egocentrism
Egocentrism is when you consider yourself first, rather than second. You make a message because it’s the message you want to make, not because it’s the message that your audience wants or needs. Egocentric messaging is inherently selfish and doesn’t consider the needs of the user.
To avoid egocentrism, consider the uses, needs, and motivations of your users. Heck, do a demographic analysis and figure out everything you can about them.
Ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism is when you judge another culture by the standards and values of your own culture, often believing that your own culture is the superior culture. It is an illusion, and the idea is toxic to communication.
No culture is inherently superior to another culture, because that implies that cultures exist on a fixed path and can only advance in one direction, which the multiplicity of cultures in the world show is not true. And if you have a hard time believing that your own culture isn’t superior to every other culture out there - just go eat. Enjoy the different foods that are available from the multitude of cultures in the world, and see how our differences make for a wonderful world.
To avoid ethnocentrism, pay attention to and recognize the cultures you are speaking with, don’t use insider terminology, and build listening into your strategy. Also, don’t be afraid to ask for help; if you need to communicate with a specific people group, engage someone who understands that people group.
Parochialism or metronormativity
Do you live within ten minutes of a grocery store? Do you have an international airport within an hour of your house? Do you have reliable access to high-speed internet? Do you live within fifteen minutes of an interstate? Congratulations!
Those norms don’t apply to everyone. This is parochialism, or metronormativity. Cognitive blind spots that lead us to believe that if we have something (a positive) then other people will have it t0o, even when they do not (a privative). Privatives are harder to mentally simulate than positives, which might be (citation needed) a reason that this creates cognitive blind spots.
If you are located in DC and you’re writing for an audience in Bozeman, MT., headlines like “The beltway, amirite?” will fall flat. If you are in Texas, writing for an audience in Maine, you might want to avoid things like “It’s Friday, Y’all” in an email bedecked with cacti. If you are in Portland, OR., writing for an audience in Fairbanks, AK., you might not want to discuss how this 30f cold snap is life-threatening.
To avoid parochialism, don’t write based on your own experiences. Understand the needs and experiences of your audience.
More usable and actionable
User-centric writing respects the reader’s time. If you make comms products more scannable, your audience will digest them better, leading to better communication and higher-quality conclusions. This means greater utility for your reader.
- BLUF - Bottom Line Up Front:
Putting the most important information at the very beginning - like a press release, for example - gets the idea in the door, even when your audience doesn’t have time for a full read-through. - Action-orientation:
Look, I know you don’t want to be in a dozen meetings arguing nouns and verbs, but; write for actions your audience can take. The title of this post is an example; write for your audience. This allows quick scanning by actions that your audience can perform. - Jargon-free zone:
Jargon does not respect your audience. Jargon is very egocentric. Instead, write for their level of understanding of the subject, and explain technical terms on first use.
Evidence vs. Authority: potential conflict
The elephant in the room here is that many communicators eventually find themselves in a position where an individual in their organization, who is in a position of power, insists that things be done a specific way in spite of all evidence to the contrary that it will not work. I think most of us have dealt with this, at least once.
This is an evidence-based strategy vs hierarchical authority conflict. Let’s map this out in a decision tree.
A:Data-Led
B:Directive"] -- Choose Strategy A ---> StrategyA["A: Follow the data"] Start -- Choose Strategy B ---> StrategyB["B: Follow the leader"] StrategyA -- Outcome: A > B --> Node1["1. Data wins!
But you might get fired."] StrategyA -- Outcome: B > A --> Node2["2. Data loses.
Sad face emoji."] StrategyB -- Outcome: A > B --> Node3["3. Data prevails! Talk to the boss
about why data == good."] StrategyB -- Outcome: B > A --> Node4["4. You were... wrong?
Good opportunity to learn."] Start:::startNode StrategyA:::strategyA StrategyB:::strategyB Node1:::outcome1 Node2:::outcome2 Node3:::outcome3 Node4:::outcome4 classDef startNode stroke:#818cf8,fill:#eef2ff classDef strategyA stroke:#4ade80,fill:#f0fdf4 classDef strategyB stroke:#fb923c,fill:#fff7ed classDef outcome1 stroke:#4ade80,fill:#f0fdf4 classDef outcome2 stroke:#f87171,fill:#fef2f2 classDef outcome3 stroke:#facc15,fill:#fefce8 classDef outcome4 stroke:#a78bfa,fill:#f5f3ff
In a basic contractual relationship, where you provide your services in exchange for money, it is extremely rare that you would be given a pat on the back for ignoring your boss. I cannot recommend that course of action. If the data are right, and you can prove that you did a better job by ignoring your boss than by listening to them, you might have a good resume bullet, which you might need because you might also be fired.
On the other hand, if you do what you’re told but document and measure, you can either be right and tell leadership ‘Respectfully, I told you so’ and work on getting them to listen to their subject matter experts (that’s you, by the way), or you might be wrong, and then you have an opportunity to learn and improve. Either way, data == good.
Why write for your audience?
We’ve gone over a half-dozen reasons, some case studies, and a few peer-reviewed journal articles. If that isn’t enough for you - write for your audience because they matter. When ideas are exchanged between parties, we undergo individual social evolution, and that’s what communication is, really; a bunch of people trying to understand each other and exchanging information.