Empathy is my best friend

I've been editing and proofing a lot of instructional material recently: manuals, software help files, among other things. Pretending that you are the person using the software/product/Web site to which the instructions relate is the best way to sort out any glitches in the text.

It has long been accepted that good Web writing follows the same principle. Sit and think: what would my customer/reader/user/subscriber do here? What are they thinking? In what environment are they accessing this page? What do they really want to read?

I found myself thinking back to my school history lessons, where my crazy Welsh teacher would talk at great length about empathy being the best way to appreciate what people really went through during some historical event. It works: you try and use that software and be that person; you try and fill out that application form online as if you've never seen a computer before; you try and set up your new DVD player not knowing what an S-video cable is and where the SCART connection on your TV plugs in and out.

Then you really appreciate the kind of hell that badly written, badly organised, jargon-heavy text puts people through.