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Funny, I just wrote "The Out-Loud-To-Your-Friend-Constraint For Writing" -- http://expost.padm.us/outloud http://expost.padm.us/outloud (It's kind of self-indul
by dreeves 11y ago
Funny, I just wrote "The Out-Loud-To-Your-Friend-Constraint For Writing" -- http://expost.padm.us/outloud http://expost.padm.us/outloud (It's kind of self-indulgent musing on the idea of constraints for writing.)
And for customer support we call this the BFF Heuristic -- http://blog.beeminder.com/curtain http://blog.beeminder.com/curtain
Excerpt: "If you read what you've written to a user out loud and it's possible to tell that it's not being spoken to your best friend, rewrite it. No exaggeration -- I treat that as a hard rule. It also helps get replies out quicker, once you're used to it."
- err4nt 11y agoThis is really great advice and I meant to hit tbe up arrow friend, but I'm not sure which arrow I tapped and now I can't see or correct it :/ I really like the idea of the BFF heuristic, but I also think people should try to read writing, especially emails, as though they are coming from a BFF too! I've seen time after time where a friend reads an email, and each time they reread it theh get more angry, but when I look at it there's no offense to be found. If you have a negative opinion of somebody its easy to read everything theh write as a personal attack
- dreeves 11y agoAbsolutely. In fact, that's the next piece of advice in that blog post. Excerpt: "The best-friend heuristic has another benefit: If a user is ever frustrated or annoyed or hostile, put on rose-colored glasses and willfully reinterpret their tone as helpful and constructive -- something your friend would say because they genuinely want to help you improve -- and respond with the appropriate tone of gratitude."