RE: This too is technical communication

["Pinkham, Jim" <Jim -dot- Pinkham -at- voith -dot- com>]

Perhaps this is a bit dialectical, but I think you're both right. The
exact wording escapes me, but the famous baseball writer Bob Considine
once advised his colleagues not to write down to the their readers in
"fatuous fear" of not being understood. On the other hand, my first
editor, used to constantly tell us, when we were editing, to "read for
dumb." 

If part of being a "professional clueless idiot" implies my editor's
point of view -- assume that if there's any possibility readers can
misconstrue a piece of writing, some definitely will -- then Mike is
right on track. We certainly should be masters of clarity and lack of
ambiguity. At the same time, as Stuart correctly indicates, we should
not assume inferior intelligence or inability on the part of our readers
to understand a concept clearly and comprehensively conveyed. 

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+jim -dot- pinkham=voith -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+jim -dot- pinkham=voith -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of Stuart Burnfield
Sent: Monday, June 04, 2007 10:41 PM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: This too is technical communication

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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