5 reasons why nobody’s reading your docs – the painful truth and how to fix it
No one’s reading your docs because they’re too long. They look intimidating. You didn’t get to the point. You didn’t explain why. And they’re vague.
Gosh I’m cruel!
But I’m only being cruel to be kind
All these problems are fixable. And the fixes are what makes this blog as kind as a custom-made spirulina, acai, matcha, and goji-berry smoothie after a hard party night.
1. It’s too long
After you wrote everything, it ended up being quite a few pages.
That’s a problem.
People are busier than ever, more distracted than ever, and have shorter attention spans than ever before (thanks, social media!)
“So back in 2004, we found the average attention span on any screen to be 2 and a half minutes on average … Around 2012 we found it to be 75 seconds. And then in the last five, six years, we found it to average about 47 seconds, and others have replicated this result within a few seconds … The median is 40 seconds.”
‘Too long’ is getting shorter and shorter.
Think about your workplace. Pre-Covid, email was the way many workplaces got work done. Post-Covid, it became Slack or Teams chat – short form to shorter form.
How to fix it
Delete the boring bits
Are you getting bored reading your own writing? Imagine how someone else will feel! Delete those boring bits.
Give readers a way to get all your key points at a glance
Put a summary at the start. And keep that summary short – make 1 page your hard max, even for huge documents.
Link to as much detail as possible to keep your document short
Or use appendices to show readers what’s not for everybody. Some information is just for the very details-oriented.
This image can help you see the three ways people will interact with your writing. They’ll skim the start and stop, satisfied, or they’ll get interested and read some of the middle too, or they’ll be fascinated and dive into all the details that you’ve thoughtfully provided as links or at the end of the document.
2. It looks intimidating
A waterfall of words has never screamed ‘read me’ to anybody ever!
If your paragraphs are long, if your headings are as rare as hedgehogs in daylight, if you don’t have any visuals to break up the text, it will intimidate the bravest reader.
Want to totally freak your readers out?
Number all your paragraphs. But don’t stop there. Number your headings too.
Use several layers of indentation in your bulleted (sorry – Roman numeralled) lists.
Use Times New Roman or any other horribly outdated font associated with legal documents.
How to fix it
Hit Enter more often
It seems too simple, but aren’t most great tricks? Just hit Enter more often. Make shorter paragraphs.
This adds white space on the page and allows readers to feel like they’re kayaking along the wide Limpopo River of your information rather than drowning under a relentless waterfall.
Use more headings and bullets
It’s almost impossible to have too many headings. Aim for a heading every 1, 2, or 3 paragraphs. They help people find their way around your information. They give a sense of order and hierarchy. And if you’re really clever, headings can state all your key points to make a glorious, skimmable piece of writing. (Don’t believe me? Go back to the start of this blog and read only the headings.)
Bullets are the Olympians of white space. They’re the writing equivalent of weightlifting’s clean and jerk. (I didn’t name the sport. For the record.) The visual orderliness of bullets proves to readers that what’s coming is not a shitshow – ‘No unmassaged brain dump here,’ bullets announce.
Use your organisation’s templates
You can avoid most other design sins by using your organisation’s official templates. They’re usually designed by people who know what they’re doing. Templates have good amounts of contrast in the heading fonts, they’re well-spaced, the margins aren’t too wide, and the fonts are a readable size.
3. It’s vague
It might make perfect sense in your head, but if you haven’t tweaked your draft a few times, it could very well be vague to others.
We’re usually vague for all the right reasons.
We don’t want to overpromise or sound overconfident.
Specifics and hard facts can sound empty without a bit of padding to add wow factor.
Softeners like ‘Our project is designed to’ give us a get-out-of-jail card if our project doesn’t succeed.
How to fix it
Edit
Edit. Edit. Edit. Does a word or phrase add real meaning? No? Delete it.
Can you replace a long phrase like ‘it is a requirement that you’ with a short one, like ‘you must’ or ‘you have to’?
Have you used acronyms to save yourself keystrokes? Spell them out in full. Go on. It’s worth it.
You’ve edited enough when you can easily read your writing out loud. You don’t gasp for breath because the sentences are short, and you don’t stumble over the words because your phrasing reads like natural speech.
Add people into the writing – ‘we’ is not a banned word
One of the sneaky sources of vaguery is passive voice. That’s writing where we deliberately avoid naming names or saying who has done something. Our goal is to sound objective, but we actually leave our readers confused. ‘The data was analysed.’ ‘Who did this?’
Name your team. Write ‘we’. It will reduce a heap of vagueness.
4. You didn’t get to the point
It’s not your fault. Nothing in our schooling or tertiary education prepares us to get to the point. In fact, our schooling teaches us to bury our key points at the ends of documents. WHAT?! Yes – beginning, middle, end. The main point is last. Introduction, body, conclusion. The main point is last.
Your poor readers bush-bash through your writing, trying to find out what your main point is but they can’t see it. Frustrated, they throw their machetes into the undergrowth and storm off to do battle with the next document.
How to fix it
Bottom line up front
Take your bottom line, cut it, and paste it up front.
It will feel INCREDIBLY uncomfortable. But it will work.
This is the only acronym I’ll ever give you – BLUF. Bottom Line Up Front. Tattoo it on your knuckles. It will get your documents read.
5. You didn’t explain why
You have to explain ‘why’ to convince people that you’re right, that they should agree with you, and that they should do what you want them to do.
You didn’t explain why it’s relevant to your reader
People recoil from a document after skimming the first few lines if they can’t work out whether it’s relevant to them. You can’t blame them – why would they spend time on something if it’s not relevant to their work or their role?
You didn’t explain why they need to do what you’re asking them to do
It’s one thing to ask someone for a cup of tea. It’s an easy request to fulfil. And it’s pretty clear that you’re asking because you’re thirsty. (Or flirting.)
But if your document is asking for something big, or inconvenient, people don’t want to do it. Everyone’s already busy enough. Give them a good reason why they should do what you’re asking them to do. Otherwise, they won’t do it.
How to fix it
Touch on relevance right at the start
Make it part of your title or subject line.
Here’s an example.
Then for good measure, give a good wallop of it in the first sentence of your document (often called the purpose statement).
Example:
This business case asks you to approve the budget for our stunning, life-changing project.
Explain why straight after your BLUF
Once you’ve given people your bottom line up front, explain why. Don’t explain why before the BLUF (even though you’ll really want to). Restrain yourself! The why won’t make sense until you’ve told them the bottom line.
For example:
Please give us a million dollars to do project x.
It aligns with all our strategic goals.
It has a remarkably high return on investment.
It is very low risk.
You’d be a fool not to grab this opportunity!
So there you have it. People don’t want to read writing that’s long, intimidating, vague, hides main points, and isn’t relevant to them.
They want short, approachable, clear writing with the bottom line up front and a clear explanation of why it’s relevant to them.
Want to go into any of this in more detail?
That’s where we give you the low-down on how to write like a plain-language genius. And we practise what we preach – no intimidating jargon, just clear writing advice that you can instantly act on.
