RE: Use of the second and third person in documentation

["Barb Einarsen" <barb -dot- einarsen -at- navtelcom -dot- com>]

It depends ;-D

If I am talking to someone (like an Administrator or a Programmer) and
telling them what someone else (like a User or an Adminstrator) may do,
I would use "the user" or "the customer/client/developer/administrator"
and so forth.

However, if I am talking to the person directly, whether it be the
administrator/user..., I would use "you".

For example:

"If you set the WhatHaveYou, the ThingAMaJig displays for the user."

Or:

"Select the Whatzit you want to configure from the drop-down list."

Barb

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