An Engineer has infected my young mind!

["MacLemale, Laura A. (LNG-MBC)" <Laura -dot- A -dot- MacLemale -at- bender -dot- com>]

Hi Sierra,

I read your post on the digest today--so my reply may be a little late. 

I too, am a relatively new tech writer, and have experienced this kind of
situation that you describe. Perhaps you could appease the programmer by
including a reference section (i.e., appendix and/or glossary of terms)
geared toward his mindset. I'm guessing that his approach is more
"feature-centered" and yours is more task-oriented. 

You can include a glossary of terms upfront that describes specific features
of the application, and then stick with your modular approach to the tasks
the user will accomplish. Logically, busy users such as ourselves would most
likely want to know HOW to do something with the software we are using, and
later look into WHY when we have more time. From that perspective, the
task-centered approach that you advocate just makes more sense. 

You can probably deal with this programmer by agreeing with some of his
suggestions (i.e., yes, we can describe the specific features of the
software in Appendix A) but gently stress your position as a user advocate.
In one particularly complex product that we document, we include a tour of
all the screen elements and features, and then go into task-related
chapters.

I'd be interested to hear how this turns out for you.  Good luck!

Regards,

Laura A. MacLemale
Technical Communications Coordinator
Matthew Bender, part of LEXIS Publishing
1275 Broadway
Albany, NY 12204
Phone (518) 487-3465
Fax (518) 487-3681
Laura -dot- A -dot- MacLemale -at- bender -dot- com