The difficulties with every-day information

Following on from his best seller Les décisions absurdes (Absurd decisions), Christian Morel's latest book, L'enfer de l'information ordinaire, will be published in the autumn of 2007. He asserts that information given in instruction manuals, pictographs, instructions for the use of domestic appliances, specification documents and even articles for the general public is of an appalling quality. The instructions are incomprehensible, the pictographs have unclear meanings, and the control panels are not ergonomic. This metalanguage, conceived as a linguistic rather than an ergonomic code, has the same faults as any language, namely that it is arbitrary and ambiguous : it is intended to be accessible to everyone, but it is sometimes incomprehensible. Its meanings are often blurred by the search for aesthetics or design. The difficulty experienced in attempting to understand information belies the promise given to the user that the product is user-friendly. However, consumers rarely protest, and manufacturers prefer to invest in areas where the economic risk is greater, such as legal instructions.