Re: Usability abuse? (Take II)
This notion that somehow all writers are usability experts is nonsense.
Yes, of course it's nonsense!
But you're pulling this 'notion' completely out of your own head. It wasn't actually suggested by anyone on this list.
A lot
of writers can even *$(#+@ write, let alone be trusted with usability. So
suggesting that they should start offering suggestions on how to make
applications better is asking for trouble.
Wow! Sounds like you're working in a highly toxic environment! Not only can the writers not write, they can't even suggest the slightest improvement to the product without getting in trouble. Sounds pretty sick to me.
In an ideal world every company would have at least one highly trained expert who would run the usability show. Unfortunately, for most of us that is not going to happen. I used to work for a software company that had nearly 1000 employees and not one usability expert. In that environment, where the technical writer knows as much or more about usability as anyone else in the company, why on earth should they not report their observations? I do it all the time and nobody seems anything but grateful for the input.
Generally it's only a matter of logging it as an issue in the bug-tracking system. From there it goes to triage where the various managers (dev, product, QA) make their judgement call about whether it's worth pursuing. It's not like I'm *ordering* them to make a change - just reporting something that they may or may not have noticed themselves. I don't pretend to be a usability expert but I know for a fact that I can identify certain usability problems.
_____________________________________________________
Lee Hunter - Technical Editor & Information Architect
------ http://www.hum.com ------- 613-282-1904 ------
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Re: Usability abuse? (Take II): From: Andrew Plato
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