For Dummies and Complete Idiots
The publishers John Wiley & Sons (For Dummies Series) and The Penguin Group (The Complete Idiot’s Guide Series)applied a little cognitive design to the publishing world and have create two enormously successful book series and brands. For example, The Dummies Series has over 125 million books in print and has extended into software and entertainment.
In the For Dummies Experience, the publishers make the how and why of this success clear. The Dummies fit a very specific psychographic profile (set of cognitive needs). Readers of the series are:
- Intelligent and know they need answers but don’t want to mess with traditional (aka boring and complex) reference materials
- Frustrated or overwhelmed with other books or materials they have tried to use to get going on a topic or solve the problem
- Intimidated or mystified by whatever topic or problem they are trying to deal with.
To satisfy these unmet cognitive needs, the authors and publisher add a specific set of features and functions to the traditional book design including:
- must be tightly focused on a single topic or problem e.g. mortgages, dating, learning HTML, etc.
- Concise and in plain language
- use of humor and even cartoon-like images and icons on topics that are normally very serious and sober
- just enough information to handle the topic or get going on the problem but no more
- can start reading on any page and still develop a good understanding. No complex dependencies between topics and chapters.
This design has “attitude” (concise, light-hearted, plain language), minimizes the cognitive load on the reader and helps manage some of the emotions (frustration, anxiety, boredom) of learning something new. The emphasis is on the cognition of the reader not the topic expertise of the author or even the profits of the publisher.
Could we have forecasted strong market success for dummies and complete idiots in the publishing world? I think not, that is why it is important to prototype in cognitive design. In the publisher’s words:
“What started out as one book has grown into a dynamic, international, multimedia knowledge brand. (Now say that five times fast!) Although each For Dummies product is unique, all products offer the same promise of demystifying a confusing or intimidating topic and empowering you to succeed. Welcome to the world of For Dummies, just one brand among many in the John Wiley & Sons stable of outstanding titles!”
Although obvious, another unique feature in the design of both book series is how well they immediately signal the promise mentioned above. How could something called a complete idiots guide provide anything but an easy and amusing read?
It is interesting to note that the first book in both series was focused on learning DOS.
