Communicating Educational Messages
Focused attention is necessary, but not sufficient for the interpretive messages to be communicated.
Once visitors attend to the label and are motivated to read, the f inal task is to ensure that the interpretive message is communicated.
The critical factor here is difficulty of comprehension. Anything that makes comprehension more difficult is going to increase mental effort, deplete the resources of attention, and consequently decrease the chances of delivering interpretive messages.
It seems that many of the variables associated with interpretive labels seem to influence both motivation and communication.
Text that is difficult to understand impedes visitor motivation to read.