TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
In a case like this, they get the benefit of having a
"user brain" in the documentation and development process.
The last SW manual I wrote was for a CAD application.
I wasn't a SW engineer or programmer, but had 12+ years
experience as a hands-on CAD end user, so sitting in on
the functional and UI planning meetings and working with
the alpha and beta builds, I was able both to write user
instructions and to provide the developers with feedback
from an actual user's viewpoint rather than the Marketing
and Applications Engineering input they usually worked
from, long before they released the first beta builds to
outside testers.
Gene Kim-Eng
------- Original Message -------
>Mark...if you only know as much as your readers already >know, what benefit do they get from the documents...they >already know it.