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RE: The coming predominance of user experience and technicalcommunications
Subject:RE: The coming predominance of user experience and technicalcommunications From:"Eric Dunn" <dunn -dot- eric -dot- l -at- gmail -dot- com> To:TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 25 Jul 2007 17:21:36 -0400
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Eric Dunn <dunn -dot- eric -dot- l -at- gmail -dot- com>
Date: Jul 25, 2007 5:20 PM
Subject: Re: The coming predominance of user experience and
technicalcommunications
To: John Posada <jposada01 -at- yahoo -dot- com>
On 7/25/07, John Posada <jposada01 -at- yahoo -dot- com> wrote:
> So, your problem with the questions they do ask is that they don't ask the questions that YOU think they should ask. Keep in mind that the most ity-bitty question they could ask is should this be a 0 or a 1...but I'll bet it can be a very important question.
As helpful and insightful as you can be at times John, other times you
come across a stubborn curmudgeon. :p
Could it just be, if you dropped your prejudice and ire, that the most
important part of any profession is asking the knowing to ask the
correct questions from your professional view-point and apply your
knowledge and skill to apply the answers?
A developer will ask: "How do we implement this function?" Once a UI
is hashed out, they will look for answers in terms of behind the
scenes code.
A writer will ask: "What is the function for?", look at the UI and ask
"Why was the UI implemented this way?", "How on Earth do you explain
this needless complexity?".
By the time that a decent techwriter reaches the last question, they
usually have an "if I were God" scenario plotted out as to how the
exact same function could be implemented eliminating possible
confusion and error, streamlining the process, and eliminating the
need for complex explanation to the user.
The true low hanging fruit could be eliminated at the UI prototyping
stage. But, higher-fruit problems will only arise once the first
procedures are documented.
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