Personal Histories
http://www.sarawb.com/2015/01/13/personal-histories/
It’s the summer of 2014, and I’m sitting in the consul’s office filling out form after form proving my right to German citizenship: filing notarized birth certificates, declaring my mother’s birthplace, documenting my parents’ marriage.
Ich bin das __ Kind meiner Mutter, one form says: “I am the __ child of my mother.”
My pen is already pressed into the paper, a half-formed 2 filling the blank, when it hits me: I’m not the second child. I’m the third.
Suddenly, I’m six years old again
Sara Wachter-Boettcher on form design, and how simple questions are not always so simple. This ties right in with what Eric Meyer talks about in Episode 91: Designing for Crisis.
January 13, 2015 - 4:59pm