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RE: "Software Technical Writing is a Dying Career"
Subject:RE: "Software Technical Writing is a Dying Career" From:"Cardimon, Craig" <ccardimon -at- M-S-G -dot- com> To:'Ryan Haber' <ryan -dot- haber -at- gmail -dot- com> Date:Tue, 18 Aug 2015 19:39:00 +0000
Well said, Ryan.
From: withouthavingseen -at- gmail -dot- com [mailto:withouthavingseen -at- gmail -dot- com] On Behalf Of Ryan Haber
Sent: Tuesday, August 18, 2015 3:35 PM
To: Cardimon, Craig <ccardimon -at- M-S-G -dot- com>
Cc: TechWhirl (techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com) <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Subject: Re: "Software Technical Writing is a Dying Career"
UX is a relatively new concern in software development, largely fueled by the exponentially increasing number of people buying more and more computing platforms and using them more and more frequently. As UX improves, I think it is fair to expect documentation needs to be reduced, at least as a proportion of any particular project's budget and as market share of the development process.
The reason that technical writers will always have a future, if not a booming market, is that even a relatively simple, straightforward, and common application like MS Word absolutely needs user documentation, whether it is offline, online, or contextual. More complicated applications and platforms, and those with slimmer user bases or that never become commonplace, will continue to need documentation.
The article's broader point is that technical writing will not be a career in which one can coast, and I think that's absolutely true and fits my experience perfectly. A real service that the article provides is mapping out, in brief, how technical writing can lead into other careers. One need not go from technical writing to unemployment, simply because one's own employer no longer needs technical writing.
Craig Cardimon | Senior Technical Writer
Marketing Systems Group
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