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.
> Seriously...doing what we do...isn't it more important to satisfy the needs
> of the user/customer/employer than to have inner peace knowing that should
> the w3 consortium point their validator at the site, that it won't find any
> " border="0" " tags or unnamed image ALT tags?
(snip)
> I'm interested in level-headed input to this...
Well, I hope this counts... :-)
Suppose your customer/employer really wants a document full of doodads.
Doodads that a few people in your office know how to produce, but it
takes lots of time and effort. And suppose the newest version of
FrameMaker allows anyone in your office to quickly and easily produce
documents with tons of neat doodads that make your customers drool. And
suppose you later discover that while anybody could see the doodads
produced the old way, these new doodads could only be seen by the 40% of
your customers who use the new FrameVision contact lenses. All other
customers see a grey box. Would you say you have met the needs of the
user/customer/employer?
Or suppose you have a desktop publisher who doesn't understand desktop
publishing. Suppose this person, when trying to create a 2-column page,
creates it the way you would create it on a typewriter, using tabs and
hard returns. It looks good on the page. The customer is satisfied. But
what happens when you have to update it? You have more work because it
wasn't done right the first time.
