Re: Magical Thinking

[Sandra Charker <scharker -at- MASTERPACK -dot- COM -dot- AU>]

Geoff Hart wrote:

>To pick up on the example of driving a car, you
> don't need to know why turning the key provides power to
> turn the wheels, but you do need to understand that you
> can't drive until you've turned on the car. See the
> difference between the two? In the first case, you're
> providing technical information that's only useful to a
> limited number of users; in the second, you create a schema
> that lets every user make necessary and logical predictions
> about how things work (e.g., "The car isn't moving. Hmmm..
> have I turned it on?").

Maybe there's another layer to this issue. Geoff said, rightly, "you
don't need to know *why* turning the key provides power to turn the
wheels." He could equally rightly have said, "you don't need to know
*how* turning the key provides power to turn the wheels." They're
different mindsets, and it seems likely that both will exist to some
degree in most groups of users. A helpful schema would provide both
mindsets with an effective framework for predictions, but maybe the "I
don't know why" ('magical'?) mindset needs a different language, tone,
metaphors, color schemes, style, etc from the 'I don't know how"
('mechanical'?) mindset. IOW maybe users can only recognise the schema
if the presentation is appropriate to their mindset as well as their
rational objectives.

For instance, in response to Mike Wing's multi-variable example, Geoff
pointed out that tables, flowcharts and decision trees can all be
effective ways to present the schema. However, these structures can be
presented in a million different styles - cartoons, clinical, folksy,
cool, authoritative, cosy, illustrated (in Mike's map example, is it
feasible to illustrate the outputs instead of labelling or describing
them), numerical, and so on.

Of course, it all comes back to knowing the users and generally it's
hard to get direct evidence of the goals and attitudes that users know
that they have, let alone the ones that are under the surface. Still,
the notion of 'magical thinking' suggest possibilities of adding depth
and richness to technical communication. That's an intriguing thought
for a Friday.

Sandra

My words, not Masterpack's

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> Sandra Charker
> Senior Product Information Analyst
> Masterpack International Pty Ltd
> A.C.N. 003 814 999
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