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RE: Definition of "User-Friendly" Was Re: Engineering design practice
Subject:RE: Definition of "User-Friendly" Was Re: Engineering design practice From:"Kathleen" <keamac -at- cox -dot- net> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 20 Apr 2005 18:43:09 -0700
Sorry, I guess I thought what I said made it obvious. The reason I don't
thing engineering design practice is the main driver of user friendly is
that it doesn't always create user-friendly documentation, of any kind.
User-friendly documentation requires user-friendly content as well as
structure, and that requires thought, even if your technique is stellar.
I'm not saying that engineering design practice isn't good/useful--don't
know what it is, but it sounds good and logical (tho there are many
"flavors" of logic).
Let me put it this way and see if it helps at all: I've seen
documentation that was grammatical (even creative) but poorly done,
because the writer/editor solely focused on the grammar and format.
Other than that, it was incomplete at best. Further, I've documented
software that could have been much easier to explain if the engineer had
a bit more understanding of how people use things. A flow diagram
wouldn't have helped; I'm sure they used one to set things up.
Structure is good, content is good, thought and knowledge are good :-)
Kathleen
-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Markos [mailto:ajmarkos -at- yahoo -dot- com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2005 6:24 PM
To: Kathleen; TECHWR-L
Subject: Definition of "User-Friendly" Was Re: Engineering design
practice
I am curious; how do you define user-friendly?
(Note: I give my definition below.)
Tony Markos
--- Kathleen <keamac -at- cox -dot- net> wrote:
>
> I think that the proposition that good engineering
> design practice will
> lead to user-friendly documentation is highly
> debatable.
> Kathleen
>
> -----
> Tony Markos wrote:
User friendly documentation is, in the main,
documentation that minimizes the reader having to do
skips and jump-to's. There is really
only one approach to creating such documentation:
Design highly cohesive and loosely coupled modules
of information. And creation of such modules requires
good engineering design practice.
>
> Tony Markos
>
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