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In 2008, we navigated in a sea of 180 million web sites and 130 million blogs, contributed to the 281 exabytes of digital data that were created and replicated (this equals roughly 2 million libraries of the size of the U.S. Library of Congress), and, according to The Radicati Group Inc.’s Email Security Market 2008–2012 report, had to handle an average of 156 e-mails a day.
Each year these numbers grow exponentially, and in this overflow of information, it becomes ever more challenging for communicators to make their messages heard, understood and remembered. How can business communicators successfully communicate their messages without contributing to the problem of information overload?
Reducing information overload
The first step for a successful, “lean” communication strategy is to realize that it is not only the sheer quantity of information that leads to a sense of information fatigue or overkill. Research on this topic has shown that the qualitative aspects of information equally contribute to the phenomenon: The more complex, uncertain, ambiguous, diverse and novel information is, the quicker people feel overwhelmed and lose their ability to effectively absorb and use the information. For example, when evidence is contradictory or the sources of information are questionable, people feel disoriented and need to invest considerable time in determining the value of a particular piece of information, resulting in a sense of overload.
What are the practical implications of these insights? Communicators can not only ease overload by reducing the quantity of information they distribute, they can also evaluate and act on the quality of information. This can be done by using a consistent format that reduces novelty and diversity, contextualizing messages to reduce ambiguity, or indicating the sources or methods of a finding to reduce uncertainty.
In a report we developed for IABC titled: Preparing Messages for Information Overload Environments, we present the following six communication principles to help business communicators make sure their messages are heard and retained. The principles require communicators to find novel methods of communicating a message in a way that is familiar, yet surprising to their audiences, such as being concise yet detailed, and communicating something in a recognizable, standardized fashion while being flexible enough to adapt to the environment.
1. Familiar surprise
Reframe messages in an unexpected way to gain attention and present novel information in a structure and language that is already known to your audience (for example, use analogies that will resonate with them).
Why it works: Novelty and surprise grab people’s attention. At the same time, familiarity with a topic allows people to arrange new information around known key concepts, allowing them to organize, understand and retrieve information more quickly.
2. Detailed overview
Whenever possible, provide context and overview before presenting the details of an issue. When presenting details and examples, systematically outline why they are important and what larger concept they illustrate.
Why it works: Referring to details and examples in your messages without relating them to broader categories quickly reduces your audience’s understanding. When the aim of a message is to convey an overview of a complex issue, one often cannot explain the broad concepts and then move to the details. Broader categories become meaningful only through examples and context-rich details.
3. Flexible stability
Ease the cognitive burden on the audience by communicating in a standardized structure that can be easily recognized, but is sufficiently flexible to adapt to the specifics of the content and context.
Why it works: Stability through standard representation (e.g., standardized structures in reports, information brands) facilitates quick understanding. Flexibility allows readers to make the information and structure meaningful to their specific context.
4. Simple complexity
Relate complex ideas to something with which your audience is already familiar (for example, through metaphors or images).
Why it works: The more simply a piece of information is represented, the less cognitive effort is needed to understand it. By using known schemas or categorizations to represent new knowledge, one can activate previous knowledge and reduce overload.
5. Concise redundancy
Communicate messages when the audience is most receptive to them and in a way that makes the messages accessible to different people by providing different gateways to the information.
Why it works: Multi-modal representations (i.e., both visual and verbal) of the same content can be beneficial to understanding and conducive to learning and remembering. These redundancies should not be overly complex, but should remain concise.
6. Unfinished completeness
Leave your messages open for interpretation so that the audience can become involved, engaged and stimulated to apply the information in their own context.
Why it works: By consciously leaving gaps or raising questions about an issue, readers or viewers have to activate their prior knowledge of the subject. This fosters understanding and recall. Audiences are encouraged to reconstruct knowledge rather than simply consume information.
A case study
A good example of how some of these paradoxical communication principles can be applied in practice comes from Trainiac.
 Trainiac aims to teach employees about new processes, rules or systems by actively engaging them with a visual representation of their work environment. This “Learning Map” provides an elevated view of a specific organization by illustrating its departments, actions and job functions as drawings of actual buildings and characters. Employees can understand abstract processes or functions with what they know from their everyday physical work environment (demonstrating the concept of simple complexity).
 The map is built on the basis of certain visual conventions, which are defined in style guides like those represented on the left. These styles are flexible enough to adapt to the specifics of an organization’s structures and processes (flexible stability).
 Through activities such as identifying objects, drawing on the map, playing games, and storytelling, people connect with the content and link the information to their personal experience. Although the map is a comprehensive representation of a process, only through these interactions with the map does the information become meaningful for employees (unfinished completeness).
The Learning Map provides an overview of a process, but still shows the details of which it is made. Whereas a Learning Map might appear visually over-stimulating at first, the actual information is dispersed and designed to be gradually explored under the guidance of the facilitator (detailed overview).
Finding creative ways for embracing the six principles
Communicators who want to implement an overload-aware communication strategy, and make their messages heard, understood and remembered, have to embrace a variety of communication paradoxes. Interactive visualization provides only one method, but a particularly promising one.
Jeanne Mengis is a senior researcher at the University of Warwick, Warwick Business School, U.K. She is also a senior lecturer at the University of Lugano (USI), Switzerland, at the faculty of communication sciences, where she teaches decision making. She has conducted executive training for organizations at the United Nations, UBS, Ernst & Young, Commerzbank and others.
Martin J. Eppler is a chaired professor of information and communication management at the University of Lugano (USI), Switzerland where he teaches managerial communication and knowledge management, and conducts research on strategic decision making and strategy communication. He has published more than 80 academic papers and eight books on knowledge communication. |
