Title :
Professional Writers and Empathy: Exploring the Barriers to Anticipating Reader Problems
Author :
De Jong, Menno ; Lentz, Leo
Author_Institution :
Univ. of Twente, Enschede
Abstract :
Research has shown that professional writers cannot accurately predict the problems readers will experience when using functional documents. In this paper, we give an overview of reasons why it can be so hard for writers to anticipate reader problems. We elaborate on the concept of empathy, and discuss a broad range of research offering explanations for the lack of empathy among writers and reviewers.
Keywords :
document handling; empathy; functional documents; professional writers; reader problem anticipation; Context awareness; Feedback; Gears; Graphics; Process design; Readability metrics; Scattering; Usability; Web page design; Writing; curse of expertise; document design; empathy; expert review; reader feedback; writing skills;
Conference_Titel :
Professional Communication Conference, 2007. IPCC 2007. IEEE International
Conference_Location :
Seattle, WA
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4244-1242-6
Electronic_ISBN :
978-1-4244-1243-3
DOI :
10.1109/IPCC.2007.4464058
