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| "He shook his head, saying, "We got rid of them all. All they do is write.
Anyone can do that."
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| Man, I HOPE that is not the prevailing attitude, although it seems to be so
in more than one workplace. Here, they are training Clerks and Documentation
Specialists to do the Tech Writing. This IS disturbing.
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| I do believe though, that that attitude will come back and bite them in the
butt someday when it comes to quality of the documentation.
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December's _Intercom_ (monthly publication of the STC) has a fine article on
inductive interfaces. This might be a growth area in the right companies --
maybe yours! When I worked at Artisoft, the developers had begun to come to me
with queries about language and labels, and one of the writers and I were even
redesigning some dialog boxes on the side because the developers were all
interested in making things as good as they could be. It augured well for the
future, and I do think that we could have become more involved with creating
the overall user experience had there been time. Evidently Microsoft has
developed some standards for inductive interfaces. The article gives several
references to Web site, including Microsoft's.
One problem with the article to me was her using a PC application and a Web
application for the purpose of illustrating what a deductive interface is and
what an inductive interface is. I would have liked to have seen two PC
applications. That would have also more dramatically demonstrated what a
difference it can make to users if titles, labels, and buttons make sense.
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