I’ve been learning about software quality assurance (QA). I’m a QA proofreader for documents and publications. These two areas of QA look quite different, but they both involve empathy for the reader/user.

To QA a website, you need to understand how people really use it. The QA process aims to catch anything that could cause problems for the user. This includes obvious defects, such as broken links, and areas of friction, such as confusing navigation.

Empathy for users is also important in my area of QA.

We often say that editors and proofreaders are “advocates for human readers.” In addition to looking for mechanical defects such as grammatical mistakes, we’re also alert to areas of friction. For example, an editor commissioned to carry out a Plain English edit would identify complex scholarly phrasing as a friction hotspot.

Software QA and editorial QA take different approaches to testing the reader/user experience.

The Think-Aloud Protocol

The Think-Aloud Protocol tests how real people navigate through a piece of software. Observers watch the test participants without intervening. The participants verbalise their thoughts as they go. This allows the observers to spot which areas of the software run smoothly and which cause friction.

In the editorial QA version of this scenario, there is no test with observers and participants. Instead, the editors or proofreaders are the text’s first external readers. In other words, we’re the first people outside the production team to read the text.

As we read, we observe our own reactions and use our own judgement and experience to think about how other readers may react to the text. What we consider may depend on the instructions in the editorial brief. For example, an editor might focus on accessibility.

Empathy and scope in editorial QA

In editorial QA, exercising empathy for the reader is a matter of scope.

If you ask an editor to perform a heavy edit, you’re really asking them to think deeply about many different aspects of the readers’ experience of the text. The editor will find out who the intended readers are. Then they will use their editorial training and experience to make significant changes to the text to make it more suited to those readers.

This kind of editing is both subjective (the editor’s assessment of readers) and objective (known editorial techniques).

When we’re asked to carry out a lighter edit (such as a light edit, proof-edit, or proofread), we don’t focus so deeply on the readers’ experience. Instead, we look for issues in the text as it stands. Are there:

• contradictions?
• ambiguities?
• inconsistencies?
• unexpected problems?

Empathy for the reader sometimes comes into it, but not always. Here’s how I would categorise some of the issues I might come across when proofreading.

• Contradiction: The cat is brown on page 1 and white on page 2. (No empathy needed.)
• Ambiguity: It’s not clear who is doing what in this sentence. (No empathy needed.)
• Unexpected problem: The same paragraph is repeated three times. (No empathy needed.)
• Ambiguity: This word has a double meaning in slang that could embarrass the client. (Protectiveness of client)
• Unexpected problem: The sudden change of topic confused me and could confuse readers. (Empathy for readers)
• Unexpected problem: This AI output contains biased attitudes. (Protectiveness of client and empathy for readers)

Naturally, this blog post isn’t a definitive guide to the differences between heavy and light editing. I’ve carried out both, so what I say here is based entirely on my experience.

To me, heavy editing is always very heavily stamped with the question of “What is best for readers?” This is balanced with “How can I preserve what the writer originally said?” The editor has to stay true to the writer’s intention while putting significant changes in place. This is an exercise in empathy in itself.

Lighter editorial work seems to leave a lot more space for the pre-existing wording of writers/clients. This is generally because the aim is to change text only when needed and leave feedback only when necessary.