Satoshi wrote:
"Academic authors tend not to think of the readers. If authors are
trained to place readers in the first place, the legibility
(understandability) will be greatly improved."
In my French composition lessons (long ago!) I was often reminded (is
the passive appropriate here?) that the rationale to use "nous" (we)
instead of "je" (I) was not a matter of personal pretention or else, of
trait of cultural reserve. I was told that to any writing there always
is more than one person involved. Minimally they are two: the writer and
eventually one reader, this latter being willingly or otherwise engaged
by the former, which is the purpose of writing anyway!
But even more so, to any artifact, in addition unknown but potential
future end-readers, there are draft reviewers, peer reviewers, proof
readers, editors, librarians, collectors, etc. who all will somehow read
the artifact for one purpose or another. I was told that a good writer
(designer) should aim at addressing his message to all those eventual
readers (users) and enroll all of them into his discourse (into using
his artifact). These latter are the only judges of clarity and
accountability...
I entirely agree with Satoshi. Like in case of any other design output,
the quality of a written artifact should ALSO be measured by the numbers
of readers (users) the author (designer) has satisfactorily engaged.
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