# Rendering Casualty

> A Rendering Casualty happens when a document arrives and is admitted, but its meaning is encoded in a way the observer cannot decode.

**Real.** This entry is about something real, written from outside the CharliVerse.

A **Rendering Casualty** is the first of the four classes of [information casualty](https://charli.info/charlipedia/information-casualty/) in the [Zero Information Casualty](https://charli.info/charlipedia/zero-information-casualty/) standard. The document arrived and was admitted, but its meaning was encoded in a way the observer could not decode: colour as information, an unlabelled image that carries content, a heading that is only large.

Its question is *can they read it?*, and its governing principle is the [Single-Sense Rule](https://charli.info/charlipedia/single-sense-rule/). Lost structure counts too: if the fact *the main content starts here* reaches some readers and not others, that is a Rendering Casualty of the document's own organisation.

It is the concern of ZIC's first version. It at least announces itself: a confused reader knows something is wrong. Its silent cousin is the [Reconstruction Casualty](https://charli.info/charlipedia/reconstruction-casualty/).

## Behind the scenes

A real idea, from [Zero Information Casualty v1.7](https://carrados.com/papers/zic-design-standard/), the design standard by Charli-Jo Tyrer and Claude, §1.8 and §1.15. This entry summarises it; the standard is the authority.