Re: Generation Y doesn't like paternal delivery of user ed?

[Keith Hood <klhra -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

It still depends on the audience. You have to write to such a level that the majority of the projected users can successfully use the product. That has not changed and will not change.

We may not have to write to the LCD if we're writing to the IT department. But if we're writing to the vast majority of real computer users, the people who are hired to use Excel in the real estate office or Word in the hospital records department, or who are supposed to use the company's in-house application for entering customer orders, we very definitely have to take the LCD into account. Even today, a lot of them can get pretty darn L.

The fact that someone grows up with computers doesn't necessarily mean they understand how to use a computer. There are a lot of people out there who aren't computer users, they're 21st century magic users. They expect to be able to simply push a button and what they want happens. We all know people who may be able to run computer games or sound programs on their computers, but that's all they really know how to do. Take them out of the narrow slice of applications they're familiar with, and they're helpless. They may be able to read an Excel spreadsheet that they called up from the company network, but they have no idea how to set up the formula that produces the final tally or how to apply conditional formatting to the cells. And they sure as heck don't know how to use the recovery disks.

(And any IT guy can attest to this - after all these years they STILL don't understand the importance of doing backups or having a UPS or running virus scans.)

I'm afraid the lowest common denominator will still be a factor to consider in writing as long as there's people to be lowest. 



      
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