Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 21, 1991 TAG: 9103210551
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: ROBERT M. ANDREWS ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Her enemy is the growing avalanche of badly written forms, unintelligible letters and confusing documents that drive millions of Americans nearly bonkers every day. The enemy, she says, is everywhere.
College students can't understand the loan applications they're supposed to fill out. Older people are stumped by insurance claims. Telephone bills are a puzzle. Sweepstakes entries are verbal jungles of legal jargon.
Think those Form 1040s from the tax people are a headache? Try tackling Form 171, the accordion-like federal job application that's a bureaucratic nightmare in small, green type.
"If you have the persistence to fill out this form, you ought to get the job anyway," Bagin says.
Bagin, a former high school English teacher from suburban Philadelphia, is director of the Document Design Center at the private American Institutes of Research.
Her job is to transform the unintelligible paperwork of government and corporate clients into user-friendly models of simplicity and clarity.
"What's wrong with being direct and clear?" she asks. "Why isn't simplicity the goal?"
The center has redesigned Pennsylvania Electric's customer bills and Citicorp's collection letters. One of its biggest projects was a top-to-bottom rewrite of the owner's manual for Ford Taurus automobiles.
That job was commissioned after a senior Ford executive couldn't understand the old manual's instructions for setting the digital clock in his new car.
His frustration is shared by many other Americans, especially older people, according to a survey Bagin conducted last year for Modern Maturity, the bimonthly magazine of the American Association of Retired Persons.
"The forms we now use would make the Marquis de Sade wild with envy," a Florida woman wrote about her insurance carrier's paper work.
"I've reached an age when Chinese puzzles are no longer any fun," another respondent wrote.
Complaining of small type, one woman wrote: "I've just noticed a teensy-weensy statement in one margin that says something about a felony. When I'm arrested, maybe someone can read it to me along with my rights."
Some of the nearly 4,000 respondents sent examples of outrageous forms, including one from the Social Security Administration that was studded with boxes labeled "SAC" or "EMY" and carried such perplexing commands as "Enter COA in TID block."
Another, a Medicaid form, gave instructions in green ink that virtually disappeared in their green-colored boxes.
Bagin says many forms are incomprehensible because they are written for the convenience of their authors - lawyers, engineers, marketing executives - without regard for those who are answering the questions.
She has a suspicion that some form-writers deliberately avoid asking simple questions because they might look stupid. "So they cloud the issue to appear smart, complex and educated, and to add some mystery to their profession," she says.
How can the public fight gobbledygook?
"Complain, and complain loudly," Bagin said. "Pick up the phone and argue about it. Speak to the people who gave you the forms, speak to their bosses, speak to the CEOs [chief executive officers]. The worst thing is to do nothing."
by CNB