Catching my breath in the back of the cab, I looked around. As I regained hope to still make my train, I noticed a transparent sticker with text on the left rear window of the car. “Berlin Taxi Rates,” it read. “Short Version.” I almost laughed.
The sticker was maybe ten centimeters wide, and it reached across half the height of the window. I couldn’t snap a clear picture of it, but I later found the document online. It had four sections, nine different prices, and listed all the various surcharges, edge cases, and payment conditions. 250 words in total. Welcome to Germany.
If I asked you to design the shortest version of a taxi [pricing scheme](https://nik.art/high…
Catching my breath in the back of the cab, I looked around. As I regained hope to still make my train, I noticed a transparent sticker with text on the left rear window of the car. “Berlin Taxi Rates,” it read. “Short Version.” I almost laughed.
The sticker was maybe ten centimeters wide, and it reached across half the height of the window. I couldn’t snap a clear picture of it, but I later found the document online. It had four sections, nine different prices, and listed all the various surcharges, edge cases, and payment conditions. 250 words in total. Welcome to Germany.
If I asked you to design the shortest version of a taxi pricing scheme you can think of, what would you come up with? In my head, when I read “Short Version,” I thought of something like this: “Base fee 5 €, every additional kilometer 1 €.” Boom. Five words, two numbers. Done.
Now, if you can’t make the system itself simple for whatever reason, you can still simplify your explanation of how it functions. Keep the five words, and add another line. “Extra charges and conditions may apply.” Throw in “Ask your driver” if you’re feeling generous. In any case, you can now save lots of sticker material—and customer confusion. After all, the end price is what matters to most people. Not how much which kilometer costs and why.
Sometimes, we do a lazy job and pretend it’s the best one we can do. But is it really? Would you have arrived here if you had started from scratch? Or are you just looking to clock out early?
Weighing your words is always worth it. But perhaps we should put them on the scale a second time when someone asks us for “the short version.”
Nik
Niklas Göke writes for dreamers, doers, and unbroken optimists. A self-taught writer with more than a decade of experience, Nik has published over 2,000 articles. His work has attracted tens of millions of readers and been featured in places like Business Insider, CNBC, Lifehacker, and many others. Nik has self-published 2 books thus far, most recently 2-Minute Pep Talks. Outside of his day job and daily blog, Nik loves reading, video games, and pizza, which he eats plenty a slice of in Munich, Germany, where he resides.