BBC News Headline
"One in five UK adults 'illiterate'
Experts fear the UK's illiteracy rate will worsen
At least seven million adults in the UK are functionally illiterate, according to an annual United Nations (UN) survey"

Communication Diversity – It’s a big, big problem – or opportunity.

Kevin M Thomson - FCIM ABC. Founder Hidden Differences & President Textic. Author Emotional Capital, The Company Culture Cook Book. Honorary Professor Birmingham Business School. Currently a member of the BSI Standards Committee on Web Usability for the Disabled.

Seven million people at least are illiterate in the UK – with a further 10 million below Grade C at GCSE i.e. 17 million; and it is getting worse. What if I told you they form just a quarter of the (incredible but true) 50% of the UK population who need a way of accessing information beyond the usual text delivered as ‘read only’ (be it print, web, intranet, text, Word doc etc). Because if you can’t read, then what use is text that you have to read? And it must be obvious from the diagram below, and common sense, we are built to look AND listen! You will see later how sight and sound communication i.e multi-sensory can give a 21% increase in effectiveness.

What use is text if you have visual or physical difficulties with reading, or in using a mouse to get to the text? This is another 7+ million people, and there are many more in our aging population, not necessarily registered as disabled e.g. with Parkinson’s, co-ordination or vision problems.

What use is text if you have English as a second language and you can understand it spoken but not easily, or at all, when written? That is another 7+ million people, including now over 1 million Poles, and over 200 languages in London.

What use is text that is a seen as a jumble on the page, and incomprehensible words when you have hidden difficulties like dyslexia? That’s another 7+ million people, actually nearer 12 million if you include ADHD, dyspraxia and other ‘hidden differences’? Now, add jargon, such as APR which 50% of mortgage applicants have no idea about (in fact 30% of people had no idea what 50% of the applications are about according to the FSA), or add new recruits, or new to a job internally or transferred abroad, trying to understand your corporate lexicon – in any language. And what if you can read but you have no time, too busy? Suddenly everyone has issues.

To get to an astonishing 50% of the population or 30 million people suddenly you can see (if you are able to read this) that this is a big, big issue and is not just about literacy. Nor is it just about those who are blind and classed as ‘disabled’. We are talking here of all disabilities and difficulties - not with ‘ramps’ - but with something so much more important to everyone and our economy - the written word, and how it is accessed. Think of it as ‘communication diversity’, and that includes disability, and it becomes a social, legal, public service, training, safety, education and business issue.

I believe ‘communication diversity’ will be the next big thing. That’s’ why we have started the Big, Big Difference Campaign to invite all organisations to do something about this. Not as a ‘problem’ but as a big, big opportunity. It is an opportunity, to make a difference, not just to comply with the law but to create more efficient and effective organisations. The wastes of time, money, productivity alone make ‘communication diversity’ education, training and development a high priority never mind the legal issue.

Sadly (so far) given that the DDA 1995/2005 has ‘taken so few prisoners’ (apart from the odd case like the Metropolitan Police Inspector who won a landmark ruling that dyslexia is a disability and provisions, or ‘reasonable adjustments’ should be made) we can assume (for the moment) that the law and more government intervention like the DDA is not likely to become the driving force for change. So how about a reasoned argument, or two? Here are mine.

While 50% of the population need different ways of communication, the other 50% of the population prefer different ways of communication and so everyone can operate in a more productive environment. A win/win for everybody. Yet the usual mode of communication today is ‘read only’ text, in English, in 8-10 point type on a high contrast (white) background. I am not talking of web accessibility and meeting W3C or good web design guidelines I am talking about something much more basic. The ability to actually read the text not just access it.

What is the point accessibility if you can’t read? Readability is a big, big issue for the millions of receivers of communication, yet what about the sender – every organisation and web site owner? Why change years of sending out ‘stuff’ first in print now electronically? Besides their legal obligations, the crucial issues are I believe not just what is being sent or how, it is what is being spent on communication (efficiency) and the usefulness and impact it has on delivering its goal (effectiveness). Let’s look at these.

There are many reasons we communicate - a/ understanding b/ retention c/ motivation d/ action yet in my experience in the public and private sector communication is rarely seen as the core of an organisations functioning and rarely seen as critical in its own right. It is just something that you have to do. Something everybody does, or you give it to the communication department. Right? Wrong.

With communication as a key human activity it was pretty important before the technology revolution. Now with the technological ability for everyone to communicate with everyone it has become an even more vital part of our ever more complex, diverse, multifaceted society. It is surely critical therefore for the communicating organisation to maximise what I call the 5 R’s of communcation - the Reach ( to all audiences), the Retention ( of the message), the ROI on the communication spend, the Responsibility (social and corporate) and the way to reduce the Risk (of legal action).

The 5 R’s are not ‘soft’ issues. And given that the DDA 2005 requires public sector organisations to have the 4 P’s (usually a marketing thing!) in place it is now a serious overall corporate legal issue, when it comes to disability. Do you have a communication disability Policy, Procedures, Practices and Panels (of people to research how effective you are)? If not you are at risk. But this is not just a legal issue, communication impacts on every aspect of an organisation and every one of its stakeholders. The great thing is that if you get it right for disabled users you will get it right for everyone.

Is there a silver bullet? Yes. Technology gives us the ability to deliver ‘rich media’ in a way that the user can choose the when, how, how often, where, what language, and what mode – visual or aural i.e. text that is read out loud to you, text that can be made big or small, text to save as speech for now or save to mp3 for later, backgrounds to hard to read text in red or blue, the language in English or any other language instantly translated – and more. So we can now see and hear when and where we like, from desktop to mp3 to smart phone and Blackberry. This is the silver bullet – yet to be fired. Rich media. Talking text. Delivered how you want it.

For ‘rich media’ let’s use the educator’s terms and call it multi-modal communication. Take a look at diag 1 to see the importance of multi-modal communication. If you cannot see, and need to hear or vice versa it is a disability issue. But if you can do both, it is clear that seeing AND hearing are vital forms of communication and need to be used together. Indeed we weren’t built to read, we were built to look and listen to each other to learn and remember.

The Cisco study (diagram above) on multi-modal learning that set out to debunk the ‘cone of learning percentages’ that purportedly says we remember 10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear etc., proved there is no set level of retentions of learning when you see, hear, say and do things, but in their study it is really clear how we get our input, we learn from two core methods- seeing and hearing.

What has this got to do with the law? Because if people are disadvantaged in their accessing of information then the law, in the shape of the DDA does step in. If you can’t see to read, it is the web owner’s responsibility to make a ‘reasonable adjustment’ and provide spoken text. But before we go there, lets look at why we communicate.

We communicate to a/ to inform b/ to educate c/ to motivate d/ to amuse. Communication is the basis of our world. Yet amazingly 90%+ of electronic learning and communication be it internet, web, intranets, word etc is text in a ‘read only’ version, usually in one language – in other words we are only using half of our senses most of the time. This is the reverse of the capabilities we have with ‘rich media’ today.

Text can now talk, text size can be made bigger, English can be translated, jargon can be busted, ‘hot keys’ for the blind and other disabled users can be put on websites and not have to be sold via screen reading programmes. So why is it not being done? Because the average person thinks that communication disability is a ‘minority’ issue. It isn’t. The figure I get is 50% - of your stakeholders and the population as a whole with difficulties and 100% with preferences.

So the answer is seeing it, hear and access it when and where and how it suits you. Will it make a difference to the effectiveness of communcation if we meet all users’ needs? Take the following stats from the Cisco study.

The average student’s scores on basic skills assessments increase by 21 percentiles when engaged in non-interactive, multimodal learning (includes using text with visuals, text with audio, watching and listening to animations or lectures that effectively use visuals, etc.) in comparison to traditional, single-mode learning.

Having been involved in workforce communcation for many decades we believe that few inside organisations recognise the significance of the diverse nature of today’s stakeholder communications needs, or few of us personally make significant allowance for communication diversity in our own personal or departmental communication – internally or externally. Why? Firstly because traditional communication could not have offered the solutions needed. Secondly, too many people see we have ‘homogenous stakeholders’ i.e. we are all educated, English speaking, literate, capable of reading (8 point type) and understanding corporate or other jargon, so we only need to provide homogenous communication solutions i.e. one size fits all.
We all need help or will need help sometime. Especially in an ageing world. Especially in a world where we are rapidly changing jobs and where jobs are rapidly becoming more complex with greater and greater technical and technological jargon. Indeed as organisations themselves and the world we live in becomes more complex it is organisation language i.e. its lexicon that may be one of the most significant factors in meeting the needs of it stakeholders – inside and out. Our research suggests lexicon issues are a need that needs to be satisfied for all, not just the needs of new recruits.
To conclude, we all have communication preferences, many of us have communications needs – I am dyslexic and suffer from Meares/Irlens and need special glasses; we all however are built to access the world in a multi-modal way be seeing, hearing, touching. Now is the time to use technology to deliver it, and to build organisations that want to deliver to the communication diversity audiences – of all ages and abilities.
Copyright - Kevin Thomson April 2008