Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

60%
+1 −0
Q&A Is it okay to call the reader's target audience stupid?

Please write in whatever style is necessary to get the information across in a memorable way. Please write in a way that makes the reader actually smarter, even if it makes you sound a little sill...

posted 11y ago by David Cary‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T02:31:42Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/6404
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar David Cary‭ · 2019-12-08T02:31:42Z (over 4 years ago)
Please write in whatever style is necessary to get the information across in a memorable way.

Please write in a way that makes the reader actually smarter, even if it makes you sound a little silly rather "intelligent" or "professional". ( [a](http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/09/conversational_.html), [b](http://www.communitywiki.org/en/PlainTalkDrama) )

Some of my favorite authors occasionally call users "stupid" ( [c](http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/04/my_favorite_gra.html) ).

My users generally are pre-occupied with something else, or are stressed by time pressures, or have not yet learned or have forgotten what I think are some of the niftiest parts of my application.

It's quite all right to remind me that every user has occasional mental glitches, and it's my responsibility to make sure such momentary awkwardness doesn't lead to something horrible, like erasing a hard drive or leaking a credit-card number to the bad guys.

It's also quite all right to remind me that all humans can keep only a finite number of things in their heads at any one time, so I need to design a system that works even when my users are unable to give it their full attention.

On the other hand, if you tell me I can blame the mistakes my users make entirely on those users, and it's OK to do nothing to help them, you are doing them and me a disservice.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2012-09-27T16:10:30Z (over 11 years ago)
Original score: 2