Re: Interviewing Subject Matter Experts

[ccallen -at- beckman -dot- com]

"Brierley, Sean" wrote (and others agreed):

>(snip)I had always thought using and learning (quickly) about the item you
> were documenting was the best, nay, only way to effectively communicate
the
> subject in a way that is understandable to any target audience.
>
That probably works best if all you're doing is telling software users how
to use an application, but there are many, many writing projects where this
approach is not just impracticle--it's downright impossible. When I was
writing flight manuals for the USAF, they would have been quite reluctant
to give me a $25 mil airplane to fool around with and try to figure out how
to keep it in the sky. They probably wouldn't have given me a missile silo
and a few ICBMs to try out procedures on, either. And I really didn't want
to use the trial-and-error method of learning how to dispose of hazardous
materials. Oh, and I'm glad I didn't have to use the
do-it-yourself-and-find-out-what-works method of research when I was
writing survival (desert, mountains, water) manuals.

Cheers,
Carma
ccallen -at- beckman -dot- com








^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

*** Deva(tm) Tools for Dreamweaver and Deva(tm) Search ***
Build Contents, Indexes, and Search for Web Sites and Help Systems
Available now at http://www.devahelp.com or info -at- devahelp -dot- com

Sponsored by Information Mapping, Inc., a professional services firm
specializing in Knowledge Management and e-content solutions. See
http://www.infomap.com or 800-463-6627 for more about our solutions.

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot-  Visit 
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.