Re: How many warnings are too many?

[Peter Neilson <neilson -at- windstream -dot- net>]

Thus the popularity of the Cautionary Tale in literature and in daily 
news. If you cannot get them to read a set of instructions, they still 
may gobble down a gory news story about some idiot whose car fell on him 
while he was underneath it. Perhaps we should include Semi-Darwin Awards 
in our tech literature. Or Edward Gorey: "H is for Hector, done in by a 
thug."

wongword -at- ozemail -dot- com -dot- au wrote:
> This is such an important topic. It is relevant to investors and financial
> consumers. Do you warn them not to borrow more than they can afford to pay
> back or do you put this in the form of positive advice eg do a budget to see
> how much you can afford to pay back.
> 
> If we don't warn people of the consequences will they take advice and
> positive instructions?
> 
> to me this is so core of so much we do across so many industries.
> 
> We need to give people the advice they would get in a statement that we
> describe as a "warning" but somehow dress the content up in another genre.
> 
> In the area I work in we give advice to people to only deal with businesses
> we license. But we know some people think it is just us saying this because
> we regualte the sector and of course would say that. Therefore we need to
> say why this is important. The warning therefore is dressed up in a
> different genre. In this case it is the reason for doing something.
> 
> "If you want to avoid blah do" ...or
> 
> "If you want [the benefit of blah] then only deal with a licensed business"
> 
> The sentences of course may or may not be written exactly like this, but
> this would be one approach. Written like this it becomes the motivation to
> read on. And we often need as much motivation for people to keep on reading.
> 
> Irene Wong
> 
> 
>> David Downing wondered: <<This raises another question. At what point
>> do cautions and warnings become counterproductive because people start
>> dismissing them?>>
>>
>> That's a great question. Unfortunately, I don't think there's any good
>> answer to it, since the answer is likely to vary among contexts. > The 
>> larger question is more interesting: Why are we wasting our time
>> and endangering the user by creating warnings? 
> 
> 
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