The Clarity Check
Where Are People Getting Lost?
A simple tool for finding the friction between what you intend to communicate and what someone else actually experiences.
The Idea
Clarity Creates Confidence.
When people don't understand where they are, what matters, or what happens next, the instinct is to add more: more signs, more copy, more instructions.
But more information rarely creates more clarity. The Clarity Check helps you find where understanding is breaking down before you add another solution.
The Clarity Check grew out of the talk The Space Between Us, which asks what happens if misunderstanding isn't a people problem, but a design problem.
The Framework
Three Lenses.
Each lens comes with three questions in the download.
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Perspective
Start where they are, not where you are.
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Hierarchy + Clarity
Remove before you add.
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Destination + Direction
Design backward from where they need to go.
The Space Between
What are you asking them to figure out for themselves?
Applications
Use it anywhere people need to understand what happens next.
On screen and on paper
- Websites
- Presentations
- Communications
- Brands
In the world
- Customer experiences
- Signage + wayfinding
- Physical environments
Download
Find the space between what you intended and what they experienced.
One page. Three lenses. Nine questions.
Clarity Call
Found something that isn't clear?
Sometimes you can see where people are getting lost but not why. Bring one thing that isn't working to a 30-minute Clarity Call. We'll look at where the friction is happening and identify what needs to change.
About
Carolyn Friebner-Mueller
Founder + Creative Director, Dazu Creative
Carolyn leads Dazu Creative, a studio in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Her work spans environmental graphic design, signage and wayfinding, branding, communication design and digital experiences.
Across all of it, the question is the same: what does someone need to understand, and when do they need it? For more than 20 years she has helped civic, healthcare, cultural and nonprofit organizations make complex information and places easier to understand and move through.
Clarity Creates Confidence.