RE: The coming predominance of user experience and technicalcommunications

["Lauren" <lt34 -at- csus -dot- edu>]

I've been to the "self-scanner" aisle a few times.  I tried it when I was in
a hurry, then, while at the hardware store, when there weren't any "regular"
check out lanes open, I walked up to the machine as though it were some sort
of intimidating beast.  I must have had a look of utter distress on my face
as I stood there with my hands full and my dog on a leash.  Probably a look
that says, "Technology?  I don't know nothin' 'bout no stinkin' technology!"
I turned in desperation to self-checkout baby-sitter, "Aren't there any
people?" I asked.  He said, "I'll ring you up."  He did all of the work and
bagged everything for me.

I think that technology is great.  But when stores thrust it upon us in
order to save money they should at least give us a discount for having to do
things ourselves.  Back in the day when gas stations had full service, there
was a price difference between doing it yourself and having someone else do
it.  "Full service" gas is a thing of the past and shopping had better not
follow the same path.  Naturally, being as geeky as I am, if I was regularly
faced with self-checkout enough times, I could jack up the system
sufficiently with errors and whatnot at stores where I shop so that the
stores will probably see me coming and send a checker to intercept me.

And now for the technical writing conundrum.  If applications, like checkout
registers, are being designed to be so "user-friendly" that they don't need
documentation and that the interface will walk users through without effort,
then is it possible that software applications that are typically supported
with documentation will, in many cases, make documentation obsolete?  Will
technical writers become obsolete for certain types of "user-friendly"
documentation?  What will happen to the market if this becomes the case?

Lauren
 
> Behalf Of Richard Lewis

> 
> Chris Borokowski wrote:
>    
>   It seems to me this is the kind of role [dev of effective 
> User Interfaces] technical communicators/writers should get 
> involved with. We've got tons of technology, but how much of 
> it is slow and inefficient and tiresome because the interface sucks?
> 
> Richard Lewis responds:
>    
>   I went grocery shopping last night and I flat out told the 
> store manager that I refuse to learn the interface of their 
> You-Do-The-Scanning system.   If I have to learn yet another 
> terrible interface, I am going to throw up all over the 
> place.  I mean, I have to select the "Bakery" icon to tell 
> the darn thing that I am next going to scan a vegetable.  
>    

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