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Re: A technique to get on development's good side

Subject: Re: A technique to get on development's good side
From: "Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 14:35:52 -0700


Heck with features. At a previous company I frequently found myself
in meetings where entire new products were proposed based on the
arguement that "nobody else is doing this, we'll be the first." No time
whatsoever spent on the question of whether the reason nobody else
was working on such a product was that there was no profit to be made in developing it. And during the dot-com there was actually a company (whose name escapes me at the moment) that advertised their corporate mission to be "developing cool stuff."

Gene Kim-Eng


"Chuck Martin" <cm -at- writeforyou -dot- com> wrote in message news:...


John Posada wrote:
I always have an issue with this, because most writers I talk to
have no idea who their users are or what they should be advocating!
A tech writer is not a user advocate any more than a developer is
or a tester is or a marketeer is or a tech support rep is.


I agree. If you were to be a fly on the wall of a list where
responsible developers discuss issues, I don't think you'll ever hear
"Screw the user...I want this feature in only because it is cool."

As one who wears his "usability" heart on his sleeve, I find I cannot agree. In fact, I have heard statements by developers long the very lines you suggest, not on developer lits, but in meetings and in one-on-one conversations, heard from developers, from marketing, even from project management. Frequently the sentiment is uttered not so much along the lines of "screw the user" but of "users are dumb."



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Follow-Ups:

References:
Re: A technique to get on development's good side: From: John Posada
Re: A technique to get on development's good side: From: Martha J Davidson

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