Kay Hoover taught me so much in the process of creating the Diaper Diary.
She went to great lengths to make sure the literacy level was very low.
Kay really helped me to see that clear, simple, non-technical writing is
important when communicating health messages.  Well-educated people are just
as stressed as non-formally educated (or non-native speakers) when
confronted with a health crisis.  Busy, cluttered instruction sheets, too
much medical jargon, confusing instructions all work against the goal of
providing information that will be helpful and acutally USED.  It is a pet
peeve of mine that most of the materials written to support breastfeeding
have design or instructional barriers built into them simply because their
well-meaning creators did not consider these issues.

We did a survey of professionals when designing the Diaper Diary to ask
people how they referred to urine and feces when talking to parents.  And we
also talked to parents in terms of what they understood "dirty diapers" to
mean. Most people said "poop" and "pee" delivered the clearest message.
That's what we went with.

I try to run a literacy level check on many of the materials I design for
professionals, and I for sure do it on everything I design that is focused
toward parents.

Barbara Wilson-Clay, BS, IBCLC
Austin Lactation Associates
LactNews Press
www.lactnews.com

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