Re: Friday Poll Idea (WAS: In love with a word)

["nosnivel -at- netvision -dot- net -dot- il" <nosnivel -at- netvision -dot- net -dot- il>]

> sometimes it just seems like the task requires some 
> kind of reassurance.

I think it's risky to tell users that what they're 
about to attempt is "straightforward," or worse yet
"simple" or "easy".  By doing so, you're telling them
that in the best case, when they've quickly mastered
the procedure, they don't deserve any credit, and in
the worst case, when they encounter difficulty understanding 
or performing the procedure, you consider that they must 
be numbskulls.

As in much marketing writing, the ideal is to put the 
favorable idea into the reader's head without explicitly 
stating it.  If you can say something like, for example, 
"the whole procedure can be thought of as four steps," then
you can hope the reader can say, "Why, that looks easy!"
and because it's the reader's own opinion, it won't meet
the resistance that an explicit claim of easiness would
need to penetrate.

Mark L. Levinson
Herzliya, Israel
nosnivel -at- netvision -dot- net -dot- il

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