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RE: Checking assumptions at the door (but NOT he vs she!)
Subject:RE: Checking assumptions at the door (but NOT he vs she!) From:"Tracy Boyington" <tracy_boyington -at- okcareertech -dot- org> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 05 Jun 2001 10:53:03 -0500
That's a slippery slope. A former co-worker once decided she couldn't assume her readers knew X, then decided they also needed remediation on pre-X just in case, and finally decided she couldn't assume they even knew how to read. But it's just not practical to keep backing up like that... you've got to cut it off at some point or lose your mind (I think she went with option 2). IMHO, assumptions are not necessarily Bad Things. And when they are, there should be some way for that information to get back to you (user surveys, usability studies, etc.)
====================================================
Tracy Boyington tracy_boyington -at- okcareertech -dot- org
Oklahoma Department of Career & Technology Education
Stillwater, OK http://www.okcareertech.org/cimc
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We all make assumptions when we write; in technical manuals we
document those assumptions we are aware of up front. But what
other assumptions may we be making about our readers that we
aren't aware of? How do we discover them? Once we know what
they are, what do we do about them? Are these assumptions
doomed to stay in our blind spots? Is it necessarily a Bad Thing for
these assumptions to exist?
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