Stressed reading

When highly stressed our attention is on the crisis, and we have little mental space left over to understand complex information.¹ This affects our ability to learn and to retrieve information from memory, and makes it more likely to misunderstand information which under normal conditions would seem quite straight-forward. Stress could be caused by receiving bad news about, for example, redundancy, debt, a health diagnosis or bereavement.

A few years ago we researched this issue on behalf of an organisation who had to communicate complex information to bereaved people¹ about insurance and pensions.

We consulted with people who had themselves been bereaved, and the solutions that emerged included:

• Deal with one issue at a time.
• Start with the more important things, and fill in detail later, or if asked.
• Be direct, factual and unemotional. In the case of bereavement, there is no need to constantly offer condolences every time you communicate.
• Be positive and offer specific help from a human contact.
• Encourage them to involve someone else in important decisions.
• Communicate frequently.

Some of them said that they didn’t read anything for several weeks or months. When they felt up to it, they had to tackle a pile of letters, and found it hard to find the right sequence, and understand the cross-references. This is something we could help with as information designers, using clear titles and numbered steps.

1. Sandi, C. (2013). Stress and cognition. WIREs Cognitive Science, 4(3), 245-261. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcs.1222

2. These were people widowed by the sudden death of service personnel.