Re: waking up to the world of Technical Writing

[dmbrown -at- brown-inc -dot- com]

>
> ...Consider the case of a reader who
> sits down to read a novel. The text of the novel is central to the user's
> experience. It's the thing they came for. It is the job of the novel to
> grabt he reader's attention and hold it. Contrast this with the worker
> who pulls out an instruction manual. The manual is not central to the
> user's experience. His task is. The job of the manual is to tell him what
> he needs to know and get him back to his task. The novel is central and
> should bedesigned to be central. The manual is peripheral and should be
> designed to be peripheral.


I agreed with much of what you said (including the fact that we differ in 
our definition of "user experience"); but then you seemed to return to your 
earlier assertion that tech writers only produce manuals.

My point is that tech writers--the lucky ones, in my opinion--can enhance 
the reader's experience of that novel by helping select the fonts, line 
length and spacing, page dimensions, binding, and so on.

I'd call that UI design.

--David

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