Clarity, A Key for the End User

Today I was sending test prints to 40 printers to verify they had been installed right and worked properly. I made a document to use as a test that roughly said: 'This is a test. The IT department is verifying this printer works. Please email me to verify that this printed correctly.' followed by my work email address. As it happens, there is another employee at a different office who's email address is 1 letter different than mine. I thought I had made it clear enough by bolding and underling the first part of my email, however, Microsoft Word automatically made it into a hyper link and thus my formatting was lost. This led to some confusion with the end users of these printers and many sent emails to the other employee, thinking that the extra character was a typo. Luckily this didn't cause much of a problem and I sent the other employee an email apologizing for the misunderstanding. On the rest of the print tests I included: 'PLEASE DO NOT EMAIL SO AND SO'. After this, no problems! Note to self: Remember that while something may be apparent to you, the end user may see things completely different. Today I was reminded of the importance of clarity.