Re: teaching technical writing to engineers

["Mike O." <obie1121 -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

If you have time, try a paper prototyping session. Basically, you design 
a simple application, then you draw each screen on separate pieces of 
paper. Designate one (or more) people as users, and another person as 
the computer. Nobody is allowed to talk. When the user pushes the right 
button/menu on the paper screen, the computer has to produce the correct 
action. Very soon you will figure out you didn't draw enough screens, or 
didn't draw the right controls on them, or didn't label them 
appropriately. See http://www.uie.com/articles/paper_prototyping

I attended one of Jared Spool's workshops a while ago, and brought an 
engineer with me. His eyes were really opened by the paper prototyping 
exercise. He discussed it with the whole development department, and 
after that everybody had a smidgen more empathy with the tach writer.

Mike O.

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