Yeah, this is similar to finding 10 customers who love your software rather than 1,000 who only kinda like it. And if you do, it's probably because you've found a use case that is urgent enough for one specific kind of user.
Write for One Person
31–40 of 82 posts
Re: Write for One Person
#32Hypertext to the rescue! Here's the lede sentence:
> In [Structured Query Language (SQL)](https://example.com/sql/), you can solve Unusual Complicated Problem with Super Advanced Thing.
That said, one time I had in mind a reader archetype, for whom I added an appendix of one basic concept, which ideally they'd already know, but likely didn't.
https://docs.racket-lang.org/roomba/index.html#%28part._.Ass...>
I could've linked the some mentions of "association list" to a chapter of some textbook they'd never seen before-- and maybe they would read it, and maybe they would come back.
But instead, I decided to give a quick overview, in terms of an example relevant to what I was documenting, and leave them with a code pattern they could use, to get on with programming a robot like they came to my document to do.
(Though I wish I'd put an accessible showing-off demo example near the beginning of the document. After the intro, it reads a little too much like the glorified inline API docs that it is.)
Re: Write for One Person
#33I've spoken before a thousand several times saying with a straight face "Every audience is an audience of one." My first example, I was asked to give one more talk on how one needs to shuffle seven times. There were four people, and a blackboard smaller than my kitchen window. I went for it like I was in office hours, which I've always enjoyed more than teaching. A few weeks later a phone call "I liked your talk." "T…
To imagine a big audience as just 1 person sounds cool, but when I imagine the talks I need to give to a bigger audience, I find it very daunting. I can only hope that I overcome it soon.
Re: Write for One Person
#34I tried applying the same principle for building a product. Then, I have a few products that have maybe 10 users. Too niche is an issue.
It is really hard to tell with products though. Sometimes the core idea is right, but you haven't yet refined it to match what your audience wants (ie, sometimes you're building for one person that you're not marketing to). Also sometimes it takes a long time to win over your target audience, even if your product is "perfect". In short, sometimes you're doing things correctly, but just gave up too early.
Of course, it is also possible to stay with a bad idea forever. Personally I don't think it's possible to know which scenario you're in (good idea but gave up too early, vs bad idea) until you either succeed or die.
Re: Write for One Person
#35a.k.a the vaunted "Ideal Customer Profile". This is really critical for many many things in business and life.
Re: Write for One Person
#36> Often this person is me I wrote an article that never fails to put a smile on my face every time I read it. I felt like I had finally found my own voice. Ran it through Claude and it told me to tone it down a bit, but I ignored the advice and published it anyway. The article caused people on HN to say I had issues. They weren't exactly wrong, but still. Be careful with what you publish out there. Warm reception is…
Went looking for that article out of curiosity. For what it's worth, I think the original commenter expressed a fair opinion politely, but the "author has issues" commenter was unnecessarily unpleasant.
Neither of those should prevent you from writing how you want!
Re: Write for One Person
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would you be willing to share it again here? I love reading these personal things - especially the things that people publish in spite of being told they're crazy. In my experience they're usually the more real, honest and raw things in a crazy world where everyone is keeping up appearances and pretending to be normal and sane
Sure thing. https://www.matheusmoreira.com/articles/babys-second-garbage...
That was epic and I couldn't stop reading.
Re: Write for One Person
#38I never try to speak to everyone as a tech writer. Tutorials are for people who'd never used our software before, but even then I could assume a certain level of computer literacy, for example they can launch out software or browse to a URL. I can make How-to's that can assume they had gone through at least one of the tutorials, but even then I put links to the appropriate tutorials so they could refresh or learn if…
I've noticed people's "computer literacy" varies dramatically based on the applicability of whatever they're trying to accomplish to their personal desires versus work.
Being a bit hyperbolic: An update moves one pixel out of place in a line-of-business application and helldesk calls roll in from core-dumping end users who simply can't fathom how to use the software anymore. OTOH, big streaming video or shopping service revamps their UI and the end users seem to have no trouble continuing to use company resources to play videos, shop, etc.
Edit: I have no doubt many large websites have better UX resources, as compared to LoB apps, but user motivation plays a big part.
Re: Write for One Person
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
One time a project I made appeared at the very top of the front page. It attracted many negative comments. Some saying it was barely usable. Others saying I'd built it wrong, and offering half-baked advice on how I should have done it instead. That project later went on to get me lots of work and recognition, and even won me a few industry awards. HN posters tend to be overly critical, often tripping over themselves…
Negativity normally doesn't faze me. It's the insinuations of mental illness that hit me pretty hard. I quit the GNU bash mailing list after someone called my idea "schizophrenic", then like a year later I found out bash actually implemented a version of my library system idea. Very often I think I'm insane because of the things I think. If it was so easy, much smarter people would have done it already. Then I write…
I'm sorry to hear that. If it's any consolation, people often say I act like an alien pretending to be a human. Maybe it's just the price I pay for being an inquisitive person.
Re: Write for One Person
#40One thing I've noticed is that information is often either too basic or too advanced. The hardest resources to find are the ones that bridge that gap. Writing for a specific person often produces exactly that kind of explanation, which is probably why these posts end up helping so many others as well.