Re: Oh those tender users

["Michael West" <mbwest -at- bigpond -dot- com>]

Andrew Plato cites a technical writer who:

> clearly had no idea how the product or databases worked. She fought all the
> time with the engineers over the user interface and put little if any effort
> into the manuals.  In every meeting she would declare that SHE knew what the
> users wanted...which was absurd because she didn't know ANYTHING about
> databases and the readers were all database administrators.
>
> In her quest to be an advocate for the user, she wasn't giving the readers what
> they NEEDED.

> Which is my big issue.  How can you be an advocate for the users when you don't
> know WHAT to give the users?  Readers overwhelmingly want rock-solid, accurate
> information.


Here we go again.

So now the problem as Mr Plato sees it is that
the writer failed to give the users what they need.
This is precisely the position that, earlier in the
thread, Mr Plato was taking a stand AGAINST,
when he said the important thing was not the
users' needs but rather how much the tech writer
knows about the subject matter. This is another
example of Mr Plato's arguing on both sides of a
question.

His criticism of the writer he cites above is not that
she knew what the users wanted, but rather that she
only CLAIMED to know. I'd bet money that nobody on
this list has EVER said that it is important for a tech
writer to only CLAIM to know something -- so what
exactly is Mr Plato going on about? What is this "big
issue" into which he claims to have special insight?

Mr Plato's method in this list seems to be to:

1) post what appear to be extreme, unorthodox
opinions in exaggerrated terms;

2) when questioned, post one or more retractions
and qualifications that end up showing that his
opinions are really quite ordinary.

The second step is often accomplished with the help
of others who offer to "explain" what Mr Plato "really"
meant (as distinct from what he actually wrote).

I dunno, call me weird, but perhaps as technical writers
we need to be able to state our postions more incisively
and concisely. But that simply reflects my personal belief
that a forum such as this should be used for serious,
thoughtful communication about important issues and
common concerns rather than a sounding board for
self-serving rants and half-formed, indifferently
expressed opinions about the way things "should be."

The signal-to-noise ratio around here seems to be
steadily getting worse, and few of us, I suspect, have
time to sift through endless series of exchanges whose
familiar theme is "No, what I really meant was ...."

I'm outta here.

--
Michael West
Technical Writer
Melbourne, Australia





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