RE: Important Stuff They Don't Teach In Tech Writing School

["Goldstein, Dan" <DGoldstein -at- DeusTech -dot- com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andrew Plato 
> Sent: Friday, August 27, 2004 12:17 PM
> To: TECHWR-L
> Subject: Re: Important Stuff They Don't Teach In Tech Writing School
> 
> > ...You are the advocate for the end user. Everything you do is 
> > ultimately 
> > for the end user. Sometimes your client needs a gentle reminder -- 
> > "That's an interesting suggestion, but how does it help the 
> > end user?"...
> 
> No. Good writing is not about activism for users. This is an 
> idiotic concept
> that has been infecting writers for too long. Where did you 
> ever get the idea
> that the users need advocates?...

Don't be an "advocate." Be a good tech writer. Good end-user documentation
must be useful to the end user.

Everything you do is *not* ultimately for the end user -- it's for the
client. But giving users what they need can improve the client's bottom
line: If your documentation actually gets read (some of us are that lucky),
focusing on the user's needs can increase sales and reduce service calls.

Dan Goldstein

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