Re: Have We Entered a Post-Literate Technological Age?

["Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>]

It's all the same subject: understanding technology and being able to 
discuss how it works or how it's used.  Technology has existed since the 
first caveman learned to make something do more than lay on the ground; 
it didn't begin when the first electronic computer was built or the 
first software program was written, though many techies seem to think 
so.

It is possible, and in fact is quite common, for people to be able to 
tell you how they use something without knowing how it works; it is also 
possible for people to know how something works but still not be able to 
tell other people how to use it (though in my experience this is less 
common than many tech writers would like to think it does); but if 
people are unable to tell you how they use something they are already 
using, it is an almost certain indication that they don't know how it 
works.

Gene Kim-Eng


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Fred Ridder" <docudoc -at- hotmail -dot- com>
But the posting from Daniel Ng that both you and Gene are responding to 
wasn't talking about people not knowing how things work. What he talked 
about was about how people "find it hard to talk or describe how they 
use" technology. He wasn't talking about people not knowing how a watch 
works; if he had been talking about watches, he would heve been talking 
about people not knowing how to describe how to keep a watch wound (but 
not overwound) or how to set the correct time. He wasn't talking about 
people not knowing how a car works; if he had been talking about cars, 
he would have been talking about an inability to describe things like 
operating the climate control or unlatching the hood.


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help  
2009 tips, tricks, and best practices.
http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/

Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/

---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- 

To unsubscribe send a blank email to 
techwr-l-unsubscribe -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
or visit http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/archive%40web.techwr-l.com


To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com

Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.techwr-l.com/ for more resources and info. 

Please move off-topic discussions to the Chat list, at:
http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/listinfo/techwr-l-chat