Re: The coming predominance of user experience andtechnicalcommunications

["Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>]

It's already happened to some extent.  During the dot-com boom we
saw lots of people with minimal (if any) technical qualifications being
paid tremendous sums to sit in front of beta systems, act the role of
the ignorant customer (which for some required less acting than for
others), document what happened when certain buttons were clicked
and then turn them into pretty user docs.  These opportunities have 
pretty much dried up and blown away, and today's market more 
heavily favors writers with actual hands-on technical and/or user 
knowledge who can get started at earlier stages of development,
document things that people working on the products at more
complex levels than end users need documented and don't need 
to have developers hold their hands.

Gene Kim-Eng


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lauren" <lt34 -at- csus -dot- edu>

> And now for the technical writing conundrum.  If applications, like checkout
> registers, are being designed to be so "user-friendly" that they don't need
> documentation and that the interface will walk users through without effort,
> then is it possible that software applications that are typically supported
> with documentation will, in many cases, make documentation obsolete?  Will
> technical writers become obsolete for certain types of "user-friendly"
> documentation?  What will happen to the market if this becomes the case?

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