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Chuck had a interesting point from the "Is the job market that bad"
thread.
I wrote...
> > But, we have good tech writing jobs as well.
> > However, I will say that the
> > tone of clients has changed. The days of long projects where we could
> > design templates and discuss user readability are very much gone. Our
> > projects are either long-term outsourcing arrangements
> > or "quick n' dirty,
> > get the docs done and leave" contracts.
"Chuck Martin" wrote...
> This would concern me because it smacks of a "product first" attitude
> among companies rather than a "user first" attitude--and not just for
> the docs. Time and time again, it has been shown that better products
> almost always do better in the long term than first-to-market products.
> (DON'T bring up beta vs. VHS.) Yet despite this evidence, companies push
> unusable products out the door to beat the competitors that are left. Oh
> yeah, and the docs are tacked on as an afterthought.
I don't agree. Companies could spend 98 years figuring out what users want
and never hit the mark. Honestly, most users are stupid as rocks and don't
know what they want. You have figure it out for them. Hence, documentation
must educate them and show them why your products are great and can be
useful.
Truth be told, some of the most un-usable crap in the world is
tremendously popular and making people billions while highly usable,
stable, decent stuff is languishing on shelves. History is equally filled
with stories of "user-first" products that were massive failures.
I think the real answer is "market first." A product must fill a need in
a market and it must fill that need well. Good documentation can show
readers why said product is useful and fills their needs. This will add to
a product's ability to excel in the market.
>From my perspective, clients want docs, they want them fast, and they want
them to show readers how to make the most of the products. Yes, sometimes,
those products are stupid or poorly designed. But, its not my job to
re-engineer the UI. I might make suggestions to improve it, but if the
client wants it that way, then it stays that way. I have to adapt the docs
to fit reality, not what I WANT the products to be.
Andrew Plato
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