Re: Who cares about ethics?

Subject: Re: Who cares about ethics?
From: Keri Morgret <morgret -at- stanfordalumni -dot- org>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 20:18:49 -0700


I'm too new to the profession to speak for most people, but I do have an ethics question on which I'd like feedback from the list.

I'm rewriting a manual that includes a lot of screenshots. The software I am documenting often has two vertical panes in the interface, with a lot of dead space between the panes. When I try to put the screenshot in my documentation, even cropped as closely to the edges as I can, I need to shrink it to fit it to the page - and the text is sometimes unreadable. I've taken to putting my screenshot into MS Paint, selecting one pane, and "scooting" it over closer to the other pane. Now I don't need to shrink the picture as much to fit into the documentation, and the text is more readable. (this application does not have resizable windows, otherwise I would just shrink the window a bit and be done.)

I personally feel this is ethical - I'm not hiding any content, and I'm making the documentation more usable to the end reader.

But what about when I also scoot the OK and Cancel buttons over a little bit, so it looks more balanced, like I had taken the screenshot like that? What about when I line up a couple of elements in the forms so that it looks better visually, and makes it such that I can take a large amount of "dead" space out of the middle? Again, I'm not deleting any content, but now I'm not 100% reflecting exactly what the interface looks like.

I am NOT doing anything of the sort for any marketing material.. and this is an end of life product that a third party has made, where correcting the problems of the interface is not an easy option.

I've been thinking about posting this for a bit now, and Dawn's post prompted me to go ahead and post.
I'm interested in seeing if others often find themselves in a similar situation, and what other views on the subject are.

Keri Morgret

At 08:05 PM 4/10/2003, you wrote:

I'm a professional technical communicator and I'm writing an essay (as part of a
course I'm taking) on ethics.

How do you feel about the following statement:

"Most professional technical communicators largely ignore the subject of ethics,
despite regular articles in the STC's Intercom magazine, believing ethics to be
largely irrelevant to their professional development."

Thanks for your help.

Warm regards,
Dawn


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Follow-Ups:

References:
Who cares about ethics?: From: Dawn Whitlock

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