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.
I'm not sure how this turned into a discussion of ethics, but since
Mr. Hollander saw fit to publicly call me unethical, I guess I'll respond
publicly.
I'm not sure about the rest of you guys, but my manuals are not the last
part of our product that is given to the customer. They are used when the
system is first shown to the user, when he is examining the relationships
between applications, when he is selecting which applications to buy, and
when he is customizing the applications he purchases. The manuals are
probably one of the most important marketing tools we have.
I'm paid by my company to tell how something works in the easiest, most
logical manner possible. (Frankly, if I can only find one or two kludgy
things in over 200 applications, I think we're doing a pretty good job.) Yes,
I do alert the programmers and project managers when I find something wrong -
whether it's a bug that needs to be fixed or a kludgy set of actions.
Usually, it gets fixed or changed to be easier to use. However,
I don't make the final product decisions on if something gets changed or not. I
document what goes out the door.
Like anything else in real life, the problems
get fixed, the aesthetics take a back seat. It may be easier to me to use a
pull-down menu for something, but for programming reasons it is necessary to
do it a different way. (Obviously, I used an extreme example in my earlier
posting.)
It is part of my job to make our product look good. Marking some action as
inconvenient is not acceptable. I think it's more unethical to try to rip
your company in their own manuals. I wouldn't expect any company to put up
with that. If I really thought our product wasn't any good, I would look
elsewhere for employment before I tried criticizing our product to the
outside world. (Of course, an attitude like that would probably have me looking
for another job regardless if I wanted to or not.)
