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My career path is also moving towards doing more GUI work. I have a
Fine Arts/English background. In my previous position, I started off
creating icons for custom QNX apps (hello Bob). In my current position, I
started creating icons and icons sets but also had the opportunity to learn
and use some proprietary controls. I was soon assigned the task of
developing the interface for our paint program. I'm now doing GUI work on a
wide variety of projects which includes our flagship product.
In my experience, the documentation team needs to add skills to the
development process. Since I have been at Inscriber, the documentation team
has always had a good relationship with the development team. I just started
building on this relationship. I found that some developers are not as
interested in the often menial tasks of editing and maintaining resource
files (.rc and .res files in the Windows world). Once I took on this
responsibility for one project, developers saw me as a resource they could
use. Pulling a few late nights to update the entire GUI before a major trade
show doesn't hurt either.
Hope this helps. BTW, anyone going to User Interface 98 in Boston
next week? Drop me a line if you are.
Pete
