RE: Changed topic to skills we need - Warning! I am wordy.

["Giordano, Connie" <Connie -dot- Giordano -at- FMR -dot- COM>]

And if you spend all your time planning, how much real technical
communication can you expect to do.  Andrew stated it extremely well, the
methodology is only as good as the people who use to accomplish something.
I would prefer to spend 10% of my time planning, and devote the rest to
writing, editing, layout, design, usability analysis and testing, and other
the "trades" that I've either mastered or am extremely good at.  For the
things I'm not a master of, I know how to find the folks that are masters,
internally or externally, and am willing, able, and enthused about working
with that person to accomplish the project's goals.

Usability often suffers from a lack of perspective on the part of the
development staff as well.  I think it's unrealistic to assume that bad
design is always the fault of the writer.  I win some and I lose some.
That's reality.

If you immerse yourself in methodology at the expense of the reality check
you asked me to take, I bet the usability of my projects would be greater
than yours on several points--not the least of which is timely delivery and
high user acceptance.

Flame away.

Connie Giordano 


-----Original Message-----
From: Anthony Markatos [mailto:tonymar -at- hotmail -dot- com]
Sent: Saturday, January 22, 2000 1:35 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Re: Changed topic to skills we need - Warning! I am wordy.



Tony Markatos said:

The problem with Technical Writers who also devote a significant amount of 
their energies in learning DTP, pre-production, etc, is that they inevitably

decrease there efforts in doing (end-user task analysis, estimating, and 
other planning tasks) .  Usability suffers greatly!

[various responses and snips]
And to the degree that a Tech Writer devotes his/her 
energies to DTP, pre-production, and all other technologies involved with 
(what JoAnn Hackos calls) Technical Writing "manufacturing" tasks, he/she 
moves away from performing necessary Technical Writing planning tasks 
(things like end-user task analysis and estimating).

[more snips]
1.) Unless a TW has a strong background in analysis and planning, they can 
not estimate for such.
2.) To the degree that TWs devote their energies to "manufacturing" tasks, 
they devote less energies to "planning" tasks (you and your people, of 
course, excluded).