[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #50416: 5.5 About Page

[WordPress Trac]

#50416: 5.5 About Page
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 Reporter:  davidbaumwald            |       Owner:  marybaum
     Type:  task (blessed)           |      Status:  assigned
 Priority:  normal                   |   Milestone:  5.5
Component:  Help/About               |     Version:
 Severity:  normal                   |  Resolution:
 Keywords:  needs-copy-review        |     Focuses:  ui, accessibility,
  needs-design-feedback              |  administration, ui-copy
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Comment (by marybaum):

 The design is certainly a work in progress, and we have a lot to work
 through. We're all open to any refinements, particularly from an
 accessibility point of view.

 In terms of the copy, it's tempting to think that a neutral tone and
 dispassionste listing of features would appeal -- but that doesn't even
 work in training materials. All that does is bore people. (Wonder why so
 many Americans never read their email? That's a big part of it -- in uni,
 a lot of us get taught to write in a way that makes us sound smart but
 does nothing to communicate with the actual human beings on the other side
 of the screen.)

 The only people who get any training at all in how to connect with a human
 are journalists (often, just sportswriters) and novelists. And then we
 advertising and direct-marketing people have to retrain copywriters all
 over again.

 But this is the closest we come to advertising. And in advertising, we
 remember two things: we are always and only ever talking to one person at
 a time, and we talk to the emotions -- to the benefits.

 Nearly a century's worth of data has shown that time and again, people buy
 what they want (never what they need) and they buy from people who
 understand them -- who have walked miles and miles in their shoes.

 Abha, Yvette and I have pinned several books and a few ads to both the 5.5
 and 5.6 chats that teach this point -- And I'll leave you with the barest
 hint of a story to make my point that this is true at every level of
 society.

 Want to know why so many Americans carry phones from AT&T Wireless?
 Especially when, at the dawn of the iPhone's history, the company Apple
 made the deal with was called Cingular, and it had the best reputation
 across US wireless companies? Well, I'm in a position to know that the
 first thing that happened in a long process was that the CEO of Cingular
 Wireless was rejected from a certain country club here in St. Louis, Mo. I
 kid you knot -- and it started a chain reaction that over the next many
 years led to the configuration of wireless tech companies we see today.

 Of course there were many steps in the process -- but that was the
 trigger.

 So, no -- all a neutral tone does is confirm a reader's fear that a given
 piece of copy is for someone other than the only person they ever want to
 read about: Me. Or, to us, You -- with occasional mentions of a supporting
 cast whose first names are all Your: Your friends, your family, your boss
 -- and more.

 I've spent just about forty years studying this, and I don't consider
 myself all that good at it (yet) but any time I've deviated from the drama
 we all live in, called Life, and tried to talk down to or over the head of
 a reader, or to more than one person at a time, the only audience I've
 ever reached was (back when we printed things) a couple of fruit flies on
 the banana peel in the kitchen trash, where my group's copy ended up. And
 not one of them had any money ...

 "I wonder if shifting the tone to be neutral and features-focused would
 engage a larger audience?"

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/50416#comment:25>
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