Re: This too is technical communication

["Raj Machhan" <raj -dot- machhan -at- gmail -dot- com>]

I agree with Stuart's views. Technical writing does not have any place for
idiots of any kind, including the professional ones. A good technical writer
should be sharp enough to quickly grasp the functionalities of an
application. Making the complex simple is no idiot's job.  Moreover, it
requires high level of intelligence to understand the needs of the target
audience.


Raj

On 6/5/07, Stuart Burnfield <slb -at- westnet -dot- com -dot- au> wrote:
>
> Mike Starr said:
> > I've often opined that one of my principal duties as a
> > technical writer is to be a "professional clueless idiot".
>
> I think this is a dangerous and unnecessary strategy.
>
> If you're pretending to be a clueless idiot, it's hard to avoid
> overwriting and overexplaining. You'll be tailoring the docs to make
> them more usable by a handful of users, at the expense of the
> overwhelming majority of users. (I'm assuming you haven't identified
> clueless idiots as a significant segment of your target audience :^)
>
> As a computer user, when I need to look up the documentation I don't
> think to myself that it's because I'm a clueless idiot. I think it's
> because there's some information I need that I don't have, or because I
> need a refresher on something I used to know. For example:
> - I did a few manuals in Word 2000 but now I need to set up a template
> in Word 2007 for the first time
> - I'm a very experienced user of Frame but I've never needed to produce
> Help output or create equations till now
> - I know I can wrap text around the outline of a graphic but I don't
> remember what it's called or how to do it
>
> I don't think any of these situations makes me a clueless idiot. If
> there's the faintest patronising whiff in the writing that the author
> thinks I am a clueless idiot (such as elaborate, baby-talk detail) I'd
> be a pretty unhappy customer.
>
> As Alan Cooper said, imagine the user as intelligent but very busy.
>
> Stuart
>
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Help & Manual is the most powerful authoring tool for technical
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