the illusion of choice between
giving simple instructions (sign on the card reader at the checkout counter says USE THE PEN, leaving the customer uninformed as to the reason for the rule and therefore its parameters and where its exceptions are, so they assume this is the exception and they tap the screen with their finger instead of the pen)
and giving detailed instructions (sign says THIS CARD READER IS GLITCHING AND IF YOU TAP THE “APPROVE” SYMBOL WITH YOUR FINGER INSTEAD OF THE PEN IT’S GOING TO MISINTERPRET THAT AS YOU TAPPING THE “CANCEL” SYMBOL AND WE’LL HAVE TO START THE TRANSACTION ALL OVER AGAIN SO PLEASE AVOID THAT BY USING THE PEN, at which point the customer got tired of reading about five words in, and just taps the screen with their damn finger anyway)
LMFAO, it’s cute how you think customers read signs.
I can’t even get some of mine to read the damn MENU with PICTURES on it. They will ask me if we have a thing while staring at a big picture of the thing they’re asking about.
And these people are DRIVING.
True, the likelihood of them actually paying attention to any sign is extremely small. In this particular case, there probably are many whose response to the “simple instructions” and the “detailed instructions” would both be “didn’t read it at all.”
But there are other cases (in my experience, most frustratingly with coworkers and bosses) where getting an idea across is impossible even in speech, because the simple version will be misinterpreted, and the detailed version will outlast the listener’s attention span.
whenever I see one of those posts that go “always EXPLAIN to someone WHY you want them to do something!” …there’s a part of me that agrees, because you truly can’t follow an instruction really well without knowing the reason… and yet, about 80% of people I have tried to explain anything to will not even listen to any explanation that’s long enough to communicate a reason.