Art of Communication : Brevity and Clarity

Communication means transmission of some sense by one person to the other. All species of life communicate genetically through body language and speech signals. Humans have developed languages for exacting their communications in addition to body language and speech signals. Apart from languages, arts such as paintings, crafts, etc. are also used for communication purposes. Dances, shake-hands and kisses are also used as body languages for communicating feelings.

Basically, a message is communicated through signals which may be visual (body language and written words), or/and audible (speech signals or words). Use of body language along with spoken words make a message more powerful and exact tan mere words. Although, written languages prescribe only words for communications, use of emoticons along with the words has come in practice to add spice to a written message. Word 'emoticon' is coined as a brief combination of 'emotion + icon', and some simple shapes, called icons, have been chosen to represent various human emotions. These icons are included along with words in a written message.

Whatever be the medium of communication, some noise is also included in the message inadvertently. This noise may be of redundant words in a written message, additional sounds while speech-delivering a message, or body's superfluous signals while communicating through body language. The noise makes a communication not only lengthy but also ambiguous.

Every message originates from the sender but it is not the real communication. It is what is sensed by the receiver of the message. Anything more than what is sensed is noise in the communication. For an exact communication, this noise must be eliminated by the sender which will make the communication briefer.

Although brevity of a message is desirable, it may make the message unclear to the receiver. So, the message must be designed with due regard to understandability of the receiver. This may need sacrificing brevity to different degrees to different receivers of the message. This also suggests that there exists no single ideal design of a message for communicating. Every design has to be tailor-made with respect to the receiver's understandability level.

In essence, a message has two essential parameters - brevity and clarity, often pulling in opposite directions. The communicator is required to keep a balance between these two parameters.