The Designer’s Position
All the above thinking was done before I began my work investigating through CRIA the application of communication and information design processes in large organizations. When I began this later work, I was well primed to look for these shows implied readers and authors. I was also keenly conscious that as a designer I was already embedded as a part of the authoring process.
The work we were asked to undertake by both government and industry was to make their communication with the public more user friendly. Thus right at the heart of our work is a highly explicit construction of an implied reader. This is not new; large organizations are used to working with other implied readers. For example, many bureaucrats when drafting a form for public use ask themselves what a judge in court would make of a particular usage, what the internal information processing needs require, or what their superior’s point of view might be. But “the public,”“citizens,”“consumers,”“customers,” or “clients” are new implied readers requiring a new outlook. First, there is the political issue of a formerly unrepresented constituency having a voice at the table. Second, there is the equally political issue of whose notify of the implied reader is to prevail? Third, is how to demonstrate that the new implied reader is being catered to. To many in politics and the bureaucracy the third issue has been dealt with by introducing plain language. We are skeptical (Sless 1993—1996); the plain English style or writing genre, like any authoring process, contains an implied reader. In the case of plain English it is a simplified construction of the reader and the reading processes. But what constitutes evidence that plain English is an inadequate solution to a complex communication problem, and mote generally what kind of evidence is acceptable from the designer’s position within the communication landscape about the userfriendlines5 of a document?
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