Comment From Kathy Sierra: The Why-Who Cares-So What rule

“When I taught programming at Sun, we called it the Why-Who Cares-So What? rule (a variation on the Five Why’s). You imagine the most skeptical coder challenging you after you describe a feature, approach, API , etc. but they don’t just stop with the first “why”. You answer it, and then they ask, “Who Cares?”, and when you answer THAT, they ask, “so what?”. When you have finished imagining this chain, you usually have a much more powerful and motivating reason (or, you realize there IS no compelling reason or use case because you could not come up with answers for all three challenges). We now suggest that technical authors constantly run through the who-who cares-so what when writing, and it works quite powerfully for those writing marketing copy as well. Way too often, people stop at the first why (or sooner), but that thing they finally say in exasperation with the final “so?” yeah, THAT’s where you get to the meaty core of the why, and usually it’s more motivating and powerful.”