Re: Interesting Article... fewest jobs lost in Tech Writing

["M Page" <mpage -at- csl -dot- co -dot- uk>]

Jane says it all
If the market is competitive and the software complex, then the docs are
part of the product, even if the management team don't think so
M
"Jane Carnall" <jane -dot- carnall -at- digitalbridges -dot- com> wrote in message
news:153272 -at- techwr-l -dot-  -dot-  -dot- 
> I see your fine distinction, and such as it is <g> I take your point.
OTOH,
> I have been using Word professionally (on and off) for my entire career as
a
> technical writer, and I *have* read the Word documentation. (The online
> help, that is. I used to help my dad *with* the Word documentation back
when
> they used to produce a cr -at- ppy manual.)  I have also read a bunch of stuff
> that ought to be in the official Word documentation if Bill Gates had
> one-billionth as much common sense as he has US dollars - like the website
> with the Seven Laws of outline numbering that I cited earlier today.
>
> You can use Word, badly, without ever reading the documentation: it has a
> sufficiently good user interface for that purpose. You can, with
sufficient
> experience (=hard knocks) learn to use Word well without ever reading the
> documentation.
>
> With a sufficiently good user interface, you can figure out a lot of
things
> with a GUI product without reading the documentation, and increasingly GUI
> might as well stand for Good User Interface.
>
> However, I write documentation for a product with a GUI: and it isn't a
bad
> GUI at all, as these things go. But the things that you can do with this
> product are sufficiently complex, and it matters enough to my company that
> they are done well, that no GUI is good enough to school the users through
> the Kindergarten of Hard Knocks. Is the documentation part of the product?
I
> haven't asked if that's how they think of it. Will they willingly ship a
> version of the product without the documentation? Nope. For all practical
> intents and purposes, the documentation is part of the product.
>
> Jane Carnall
> The writers all stand around a cauldron chanting and occasionally tossing
in
> a small manual. Unless stated otherwise, these opinions are mine, and mine
> alone. Apologies for the long additional sig: it is added automatically
and
> outwith my control.
>
>
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