Re: The coming predominance of user experience and technicalcommunications

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

The more I read this list, the happier I am that I don't work in the software
industry.  I have documented software before, but only as part of systems
in which the software interfaces with and controls hardware.  In this sort
of development environment, a lack of understanding and communication
between software and hardware developers and user-testers usually results
in dead products (if not dead users), so every interaction between the two
is mapped out in excrutiating detail long before issues like the sizes and
locations of buttons and dialogs ever come up.  Is it sometimes necessary
to ask questions?  Yes, but usually they are along the lines of, "I clicked
button A and got result X, wasn't I supposed to get result Y?"  Whether
you're a project manager, developer, tester or technical writer, if you
don't know what results X and Y are and why X is wrong and Y is right
when you click A, you're probably not going to be around here long enough
to ask very many questions about interfaces and user experience.

Gene Kim-Eng



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard Lewis" <tech44writer -at- yahoo -dot- com>
>  I have never, ever in over 20 years worked on a software project where - even after I analyzed the app (if avail) and existing 
> docs "till the cows come home", been able to come up with an adequate understanding of the product without asking alot of 
> questions.   I have lead numerous others, and neither could they.   They may not have the intitiative level required to ask the 
> questions, buth they still had the questions.  If I would not have asked the questions for them, the required quality level would 
> not have been met.

>  Developers are very poor at taking the initiative to ask questions at other than the bit and bite level.  ( At that level they 
> feel secure.)  My God this is soooooo common: The project is in disarray, at the end of a project telecon where nothing of any 
> real significance was discussed, management asks "Any questions?"   Result:  Some ity-bitty-level questions that do not address 
> anything significant.

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