Oct 12 2007
“Flu Facts” before and after
In an earlier post (Don’t confuse me with the truth) I talked about the Center for Disease Control’s flu pamphlet, and the research that showed it wasn’t getting its message across. Quite the opposite in fact.
Well, I’ve been thinking about that brochure since then, and finally decided to do a rewrite of it myself. I had some fun with it, but do see a few remaining issues.
First of all there are some references that wouldn’t transfer very well to other cultures. (We called this “geopolitically incorrect” at my last job.) Not only do you risk causing offence with a culture-bound reference but it makes the document hard to translate.
The other issue I see is the (attempted) use of humor or irony, and the conversational tone. Both of these are also hard to translate, both culturally and linguistically. More importantly, the CDC probably has a style sheet that expressly forbid levity or colloquialisms.
All in all though I think my rewrite is not bad for a first draft, and with some design help (get rid of the oragne and blue color scheme I say, and start from scratch) it certainly would not have the problem of the original version—where people remembered the myths instead of the facts.