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Subject:Re: What makes a tech writer? From:John Posada <jposada01 -at- YAHOO -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 27 Apr 1999 07:15:29 -0700
Hi, Geoff
> Unfortunately, I'd have to say you missed the mark
> on this
> one. (Glad to see I'm not the only one that happens
> to!)
> You're not wrong, but there are more important
> things to
> focus on. IMHO, what makes a good technical writer,
> apart
> from obvious things like "must be able to write
> helpful and
> comprehensible sentences", it would be "must be able
> to
> empathize with the audience sufficiently to describe
> things in
> the way the audience need to have them described,
> and in
> sufficient detail to let them accomplish their
> tasks". That's a
We do that through FEAs without thinking about it
every time we start a new project.
It doesn't come natural to know instinctively whether
we are writing for an engineer, an assembly line
worker, or an accounts payable clerk. We find that
stuff out through a "learned" set of questions.
> very different sort of completeness from the type
> you
> proposed.
My belief is that certain things can be taught and
certain things come natural.
Presenting information to an audience is something
that can be learned.
- I document a process to a reader.
- They cannot do the process.
- I figure out what I missed.
- I submit the "fixed" process and they compete the
process.
The thing that comes natural is a curiousity.
Presented with a complex interface, the person with
little curiousity is not going to go out of their way
to "conjure up" all the different possibilities that
the user may attempt. They will document the single
most direct path to the desired result without
exploring the myriad paths that users will travel to
get there.
===
John Posada
Western Union International
(w) jposada -at- westernunion -dot- com
(p) john -at- tdandw -dot- com
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