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Summary: Documenting a **** user interface feature
Subject:Summary: Documenting a **** user interface feature From:Kathryn Northcut <KNorthcut -at- TASC -dot- USDA -dot- GOV> Date:Wed, 19 May 1999 08:41:46 -0600
Thanks for the moral support (sorry, no *truly* brilliant ideas surfaced)
regarding the Alt-key/keypad quandary.
The votes:
Four people adamantly declared it a bug and demanded that the
programmers fix it (I laugh!! I laugh!! I want to work where they do, in the
world where programmers do what writers tell them).
Two people said, and I paraphrase: "document it and shut up about it."
That's actually the road I was on anyway. It's a FEATURE.
One writer responded with utter incredulity, but after I convinced him that
I was *not* making this up, pronounced it a bug (see above).
One usability advocate suggested I use the programmers as guinea pig
users and conduct user testing on them and see how they like it (the bug
that is, not the testing).
One writer lives in my town and works for the same large federal
bureaucracy, as a contractor (like me). We're going to meet and chat at
lunch tomorrow!
All in all, it was definitely worth the time it took to post, read replies, and
summarize... what fun. The moral: this is not a democracy. Nor a
writercracy.
