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Subject:RE: Doc. departments in the Corporate Org. Chart From:Christine -dot- Anameier -at- seagate -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 21 Dec 2000 09:52:47 -0600
Funny, I was just yesterday explaining to my agency that I feel
documentation--at least, end user documentation--doesn't really belong in
the development department.
Right now I'm the sole writer in a small development group, and staff
meetings are almost surreal. We go around the table describing what we're
working on, and asking for whatever assistance we need. Everyone else talks
about the inner workings of the database and the various esoteric back-end
maneuvering to get everything working. Then they get to me--the new
writer--and I wind up saying some variation on, "Well... I'm revising the
training manual for the new version. If anyone has comments on the previous
version or can give me some insight into what problems users were
experiencing, I would appreciate any feedback you can give me." (Silence
descends. Crickets chirp, tumbleweeds whirl by.)
The most helpful assistance I've gotten in previous jobs has been from
implementation and support people. I would MUCH rather have documentation
in the support department (or rather, in a nice quiet area nearby). I want
to talk to the people who talk to the users day in, day out, and who have a
direct stake in making the user's lives easier. I've seen development types
who haven't so much as bumped into a real end user in the hallway in ten
years, and some of them have outright contempt for unsophisticated
users--i.e., my audience. Some of the development people don't understand
why I get worked up over terrible interface design or why I object to error
messages written in Martian.
I suspect that having documentation under the development umbrella may be
partially responsible for some of the docs out there that *describe* the
product in exquisite detail without actually addressing the tasks the user
is trying to perform. It's a whole different focus. (For those of you in
development groups that ARE focused on the users: you aren't the problem
and I'm not trying to bash you here.)
Christine Anameier
contract tech writer (views expressed here are my own, yada yada yada)
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