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I've always believed in the "know thy audience" adage, but thanks to this
thread, I'm no longer sure that it's a requirement. After all, relatively
few of us have the opportunity interact with customers, yet we manage to
produce reams of documentation for them each year. Emerson and Thoreau knew
nothing of me, yet their writing seems to speak directly to me. Should we be
impressed with ourselves or is this how it really works?
Customer interaction has rarely been an option in my tech writing career. I
compensate by trying to "become the user." I install and use the software or
disassemble and assemble the hardware or whatever. I am well aware that this
is not the same thing, much like a Sunday drive is not the same as a commute
to work. However, Emerson's saying, "...to believe that what is true for
you...is true for all men,--that is genius" suggests to me that my
experiences with the product will be those of the end-user. (Optimistic,
eh?)
My personal library is overflowing with Teach Yourself to Be an Unleashed
Dummy in 21 Days-type books. But when I'm in trouble, it's the listservs,
newsgroups, and user forums that save my butt. There's nothing like getting
with other end-users to deal with the questions that didn't come up in the
design specs. I'm perfectly willing to put up with poor writing and
illogically organized answers when I need the information that none of us
wrote.
So, I don't know. Very interesting survey question.
Debbie
--with apologies to Emerson, who detested quotations.
---------------------------
Debbie Molinaro
The Paper Trail
Technical Documentation
---------------------------
> So far, over 80% of the tech writers responding have no more than
occasional
> contact with the end users of the documentation.
> 65% of us rarely or never encounter an end user of the documentation we
> develop.
>
> Since tech writers and end users are rarely found together, maybe it's
time
> to reject the mythology about how important it is to 'know thy user' and
> work on figuring out how to document products in the real world (a
vacuum).
>
> Real World (the vacuum) = We have little contact with users and have
> difficulty getting technical reviews of our work (as per an earlier poll).
>
> Jim Shaeffer (jims -at- spsi -dot- com)
>
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