Re: Do I REALLY have to understand the material?

["Martin Page" <mpage -at- csl -dot- co -dot- uk>]

One quibble:

Andrew - or should I call him "Gillian Kitty" :) - wrote (amongst other
things)

>Programmers are not totally cut off from users, incapable of understanding
their needs

And

>If you want to be a "user advocate" then get a job as a
>UI designer, a producer, or some other role where you
>are developing products for customers.

Ha! You jest!

In the ideal world this would be so. And in some companies I'm sure it is
so.

But...
In my experience, and that of people I know, programmers in general prefer
to do the fun stuff:  coding. They bodge up the UI as an afterthought, or as
they go along

After all, what matters to programmers is all the brilliant stuff they've
put under the hood, not - to stretch the automobile metaphor - whether a
steering wheel and pedal might be easier to use than their cherished three
lever design (you know, with various "easy to memorise" combinations like
Forward Back Back for "left", Back Back Forward for "right" and Back Forward
Back for "emergency stop"....)

In part this is to be expected - coding's what they're good at and most
companies couldn't afford/justify a fulltime...

>UI designer, a producer, or some other role.... developing products for
customers.

Since we techwriters must approach product from the same direction as the
user - even if we too understand what's under the hood - it makes sense that
we should fill these roles as and when required by our masters, and that we
should possibly remind them that we are able to do this.

Cheers
M


"Andrew Plato" <gilliankitty -at- yahoo -dot- com> wrote in message
news:165954 -at- techwr-l -dot-  -dot-  -dot- 
> [Stuff]




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