RE: Question for writers in New Zealand and Australia

["Weissman, Jessica" <WeissmanJ -at- abacustech -dot- com>]

I think a critical piece of information was obscured here - the combination of the two countries reflects a real world commonality in the product.  

As technical writers we are supposed to probe and analyze and figure out why something is the way it is, and find alternatives that would meet the conditions and work better.   We were doing what we do, absent complete information.  Clients often present something as a binary choice when there is, in fact, another way to do something.  There is a difference between MAKING something into a different problem that we like better and probing to make sure that the situation  isn't in fact that different problem.  Of course some of the suggestions went too far in assuming other things.

If I were asking your question, I would do it more or less as follows to forestall answers of the type you got and didn't like:

In our product country or region determines a setting.  Australia and New Zealand use the same setting with the same result.  Given that, is there some cultural sensitivity that makes combining them into a single choice problematic?
 
-  Jessica
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- 

To unsubscribe send a blank email to
techwr-l-leave -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com


Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.techwhirl.com/email-discussion-groups/ for more resources and info.

Looking for articles on Technical Communications?  Head over to our online magazine at http://techwhirl.com

Looking for the archived Techwr-l email discussions?  Search our public email archives @ http://techwr-l.com/archives