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TW and/or information designer? (was: Really caring about communication)

Subject: TW and/or information designer? (was: Really caring about communication)
From: Anthony Davey <ant -at- ant-davey -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2003 22:07:19 +0000


Bonnie Granat wrote:

We are like building contractors, not like architects.

This is what I mean:

- We take the raw material -- the content that is designed by
another -- and we craft its meaning into a message to our audience.

- We respect the integrity of the raw material -- the content -- and
we don't mess it up. We don't pollute it, we don't alter it, we don't
do anything that will change its essential nature. If we do any of
those things, the building we construct will collapse. Content is -- in a sense -- sacred. It can mean life or death, as we all know too
well. So, if we are adults working the field of technical writing, we
know that keeping the absolute pristine technical accuracy of the
content is our responsibility. It really goes without saying. If it
doesn't, something is serious wrong in the world. ; )

- We construct a building (a message to our audience) using the
content. We carefully handle the content, but our real skill is in how
we construct our building (our message to our audience). Without skill
in constructing our message, we have a building that is technically
pristine, but incomprehensible.

Bonnie,

This gets right to the heart of my (new) upcoming thesis title... Are we just building contractors? Say your raw material is an interview with an SME: admittedly you won't add any rubbish that will make the end result unsound, but you will add some packing materials, some punctuation. I say, you'll even go so far as to design the building. You'll add white space, you'll add to the original material to make its presentation what you feel the end user wants or needs; you'll remove bits of extraneous material, you will hone it until until it looks like something that you think is good. And you're not an architect?

Which brings me to the question the thesis will examine ... where, in practice, does the technical writer stop and the information designer begin? Or do they overlap?

Ant



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Follow-Ups:

References:
Really caring about communication: From: Bonnie Granat
Re: Really caring about communication: From: John Posada
Re: Really caring about communication: From: Bonnie Granat
Re: Really caring about communication: From: John Posada
Re: Really caring about communication: From: Bonnie Granat

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