Facts Without Clarity: Information overload
Information overload at public institutions turns simple visits into confusing experiences.
There’s a moment that happens every time you walk into a public health center.
You approach the door and hit a wall. Not a physical wall…
A wall of paper. Dozens of notices, announcements, warnings, and instructions fighting for your attention, creating complete information overload. Each one taped, pinned, or laminated with the desperate urgency of someone who needed to communicate something to someone.
But here’s the thing… When everything is urgent, nothing is.
You scan the chaos looking for what you actually need. Is the pharmacy open today? Do I need additional documents? Has the process changed since last time? Your eyes dart between notices from different departments, different months, different levels of importance, all competing in the same visual space.
how it makes us feel
You’re already anxious about a medical appointment. You arrive early, wanting to be prepared .
You scan frantically, looking for something…anything…that might affect your visit.
The text blurs together. You’re holding up other people behind you, which makes you more nervous. You feel stupid for not being able to quickly extract the information you need.
Consider the accessibility nightmare. If you have vision problems, reading overlapping papers in different fonts becomes nearly impossible. If English isn’t your first language, bureaucratic notices are already hard enough without competing for attention with fifteen other messages.
What about cognitive load? You arrive for a medical appointment already carrying mental weight, health anxiety, work you left behind, family logistics. The last thing you need is a puzzle to solve before you can even check in.
Other side of the story
Put yourself in the shoes of a public health administrator for a moment.
You just got a call from legal. “We need to post a notice about the new data privacy regulations. If someone claims they weren’t informed, we could have problems.”
So you print it out and tape it up.
Next day, the pharmacy department stops by. “Our supplier changed the delivery schedule. Patients need to know their medications might be delayed on Thursdays.”
Up it goes.
Then maintenance calls. “The elevator inspection is next week. People need alternative routes to the second floor.”
Another notice.
From their perspective, each decision is logical, necessary, even helpful. They’re solving real problems, preventing real complaints, covering real legal requirements.
The issue isn’t malicious intent or incompetence. It’s that everyone is optimizing for their individual piece of the puzzle without seeing the whole picture.
The head of dermatology isn’t thinking about how their schedule notice will compete with fifteen other pieces of paper. They’re thinking about avoiding angry phone calls from patients who show up when the office is closed.
And here’s the thing this fragmented approach actually works pretty well for the institution. Problems get solved, liability gets managed, departments stay autonomous.
Warn people about everything. If you over communicate, you can’t be blamed for under communicating.
Is digital way to go?
My first instinct was: “This needs digital displays.” Clean, updateable screens that could organize information properly. Each room could have its own display with relevant, current information.
But then I realised something…
Digital displays would still be managed by the same institutional thinking that created the paper chaos. We’d just end up with digital walls of text instead of physical ones.
The real problem isn’t the medium. It’s the approach.
RSS idea?
What if public institutions worked more like news feeds?
Picture this: You subscribe to updates from your local health center. A push notification tells you the pharmacy will be closed next Tuesday. Another alert warns that starting Monday, you’ll need an additional form for specialist referrals.
No more showing up unprepared, no more discovering changed requirements at the door, no more deciphering wall hieroglyphics while other people wait behind you.
People could actually prepare instead of reacting.
Think about how this would change the experience. You’d know before leaving home that your appointment got moved, you’d bring the right documents on the first visit, you’d plan around service disruptions instead of being blindsided by them.
For the institutions, it could reduce phone calls, decrease front desk friction, and improve patient satisfaction scores.
But then I started thinking deeper about this solution.
Who would manage these feeds? The same departments that created the paper chaos in the first place. Would we just end up with notification spam instead of paper spam?
And there’s a bigger issue, this solution assumes people want to be more engaged with public services. But maybe the opposite is true. Maybe people prefer the old “show up and figure it out” approach?
How many apps do you really want from your government?
Where Do We Go From Here?
The answer probably isn’t purely technological. It’s cultural.
It requires institutions to think like service providers instead of bureaucratic entities. To prioritize user tasks over departmental announcements. To see information design as part of public service, not just legal obligation.
Some places are already doing this. The best government websites organize information around user needs, not departmental structure. They put “What do I need to bring?” before “Here’s our organizational chart.”
Take a look at official website of the UK government.
But most public spaces are still stuck in the paper notice era physically and mentally.
The Questions Worth Asking
Maybe this paper chaos tells us something important about how we relate to public services.
Do we expect public institutions to be inconvenient? Is struggling through bureaucratic confusion just part of being a citizen?
When private companies create friction, we take our business elsewhere. When public institutions create friction, we… complain and adapt. There’s no competitive pressure to improve the user experience.
So maybe the real question isn’t about information design at all. Maybe it’s about accountability.
If your local health center had to compete for patients the way restaurants compete for customers, how long would those chaotic notice boards survive?
And if they don’t have to compete, if they’re the only game in town, what actually motivates them to improve?