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Subject:RE: DFDs Are Great! Was Re: DFD BFD From:Tony Markos <ajmarkos -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Thu, 9 Dec 2004 17:23:07 -0800 (PST)
See "King Kong vs Godzilla".
Tony "Godzilla" Markos
--- Michael Strickland <Mstrickland -at- entriq -dot- com> wrote:
Fascinating! When does this compelling script come
to the big screen?
--- Chuck Martin <cm -at- writeforyou -dot- com> wrote:
Reaching back a bit.....
Tony Markos wrote:
<snip>
As I have posted several times: The major thing that
a TW is to do is come
up with a detailed, comprehensive understanding of
the essential end-user
tasks, and how all those tasks interrelate - with
special emphasis placed on
understanding the interrelationships.
Chuck Martin next comments:
Understanding end-user tasks is a straw man. What
technical writers (and
interaction designers) require is an understanding
of users' goals.
Tony Markos:
The only thing I know about straw men is the guy in
the Wizard Of Oz movie.
Someone else on this listserv accused me of creating
a straw man; what the
heck is a straw man?
Actually, I used to use "goal" instead of "task"
with my above statement,
but I changed it because because I thought it made
the statement more> understandable to many. (Goal is
more of an abstract
term; many people on
this listserv have real problems with abstraction.)
FYI:
Task, goal, function, process, or activity - they
can all refer the same
thing. For example "Plan for Retirement" can be,
depending upon your
preference, a task, goal, process, function, or
activity. This is simply a
matter of "different strokes for different folks" -
thats all.
Tony Markos:
From the Gospel according to Ed Yourdon [insert clap
of thunder here]: "ONLY
by following the flow of data [in task analysis] can
we come up with an
understanding [and therefore be able to explain to
others] the underlying logic of a system".
Chuck Martin:
Why do users have to understand the logic of a
system.
Tony Markos:
It very well might be that the users don't need to
understand the underlying
logic of the system. But, the TW has to have a
comprehensive understanding
of the underlying logic of the system in order to
properly orgainze his/her
thoughts, in order to give the user whatever he/she
needs in a user-friendly
fashion.
Chuck Martin:
Users are people, and people are not logical. So
then the question is: why
hasn't the system been designed to accommodate the
user, rather than forcing
the user to accommodate to the system.
Tony Markos:
And On and On and On .........
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