RE: Directions for tomorrow's techwriting

Subject: RE: Directions for tomorrow's techwriting
From: Erika Yanovich <ERIKA_y -at- Rad -dot- co -dot- il>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 08:51:05 +0300


Connie,
This reminds me of a title a saw in the recent Intercom magazine: director
of user experience. It's so wide that can actually include anything. First,
I thought it's funny. I guess it's not.
Erika

-----Original Message-----
From: Giordano, Connie [mailto:Connie -dot- Giordano -at- FMR -dot- COM]
Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2002 6:16 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: RE: Directions for tomorrow's techwriting



Phil et al,

Which means writers may have to do what I've been researching and advocating
for awhile: transform ourselves into user support/product design
specialists. I do so little traditional technical writing these days, they
really ought to change my job title. What I do look at (and would love to
start a new thread on), is developing the appropriate form of support for
the task at hand, which could mean various forms of EPSS, on-line help,
on-line docs, "traditional" docs, tutorials, CBT, WBT, and UI design. That
can encompass knowledge management, repositories, version control, and XML
rendering, but it is by no means limited to any one of those components. In
fact it means you have to start with the overall strategy, but most writers
limit themselves to specializing in a few tactics.

I don't get paid to ask SME's questions, design templates, or format
documents--I get paid to produce a quality product that our clients and
their user bases will accept, find helpful, and pay for. If that involves
templates, interviews or formatting, so be it, but it limits your
usefulness, your career track, and your respect factor to think that's all
there is to this technical communications biz.

If we really want to be an integral part of SDLC (or product development for
non-software writers), then we have to stop thinking about documentation and
tech writing as some separate special element, with all sorts of special
considerations that never get addressed in the real world.

Go back to the beginning and ask "What is it, and what are we trying to do
with it?" When you, the engineers, the QA folks, and the marketing gurus
can answer that question the same way, then you can really do some amazing
things.


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