RE: Documenting the User Interface

["Brasel, Russell" <russell -dot- brasel -at- hccredit -dot- com>]

Janice wrote:

"Where the interface is straightforward and labeled well. . ."  

Therein lies the rub!  :-)

Which is why I think it's important for tech writers to be involved in
the GUI design phase.  In my rather limited experience, some developers
have their own lingo that can be pretty ambiguous to the user.  In an
ideal world, applications should be truly self-explanatory, but when you
have to write documentation for "quick and nasty" software fixes or
applications that Dept X has to have "Now!" you do what you can.  For
instance, I had to document recent changes we made to one of our
wizards, and over the years, the GUI has become cramped.  A screenshot
with captions pointing to the changes made sure the user saw the new
changes.

If the software is "elegant" enough, you can minimize screenshots.

But often, elegant software is an elusive creature.

RGBrasel

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