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Re: Real World Advantages of Office / Word 2007 and Windows 7
Subject:Re: Real World Advantages of Office / Word 2007 and Windows 7 From:Phil Snow Leopard <philstokes03 -at- googlemail -dot- com> To:Ben Davies <bdavies -at- imris -dot- com>, "techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com (techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com)" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Tue, 8 May 2012 22:12:59 +0700
On 8 May 2012, at 21:54, Ben Davies wrote:
>
> The out-of-the-box default Word 2010 is a complete joke that is geared towards new users.
This seems to be a trend that goes well beyond Word 2010. All the arguments I've read here are exact parallels of the ones that have been going on in the Apple forums since the release of OS X Lion operating system last July, to wit:
-"it's unintuitive" versus "you have to learn new ways of doing things"
-"it's not as powerful" versus "you have to learn how it works"
-"the old one was better" versus "you'll have to upgrade in the end anyway, so get used to it"
While I tend to hold with the left rather than right side of these dichotomies (certainly where OS X is concerned), what strikes me about this pattern of debate is that it can't be anything but good for technical communicators (oh, sorry, we're technical writers, aren't we...oops...).
Across the board, it seems that Developers are making software easier to use out of the box but harder to learn past the basic level. I assume that's because most people use most software at only the basic level. Given that, there can surely only be a greater demand for those offering instructions, tutorials and documentation on how to get past that level. The trick is to find out who's going to pay for that extra technical expertise...where, when and how.
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