Re: Tech docs in a recent movie

[Suzette Leeming <suzette -dot- leeming -at- gmail -dot- com>]

Your comment about intuitive software not requiring documentation reminds
me of a recent event where I work. After a year of touting "our new
software is so intuitive it doesn't need documentation" and everyone saying
*I* was going to be obsolete, a furtive phone call was made at the
beginning of December asking how soon the online help could be ready. They
were launching in two weeks, and apparently our clients wanted to see the
documentation.

Maybe I can lump this in with other "predictions" such as paperless
offices, and shorter workweeks?

Suzette Leeming

On Fri, Jan 6, 2017 at 2:31 PM, Keith Hood <bus -dot- write -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:

> According to what I've been told by software designers, pretty soon now
> they'll be deploying software that's so intuitive there won't be any need
> for any kind of user-facing documentation.
>
> They've been saying they're going to have that any day now for at least 25
> years. I call it the Duke Nukem upgrade.
>
> On Thu, Jan 5, 2017 at 3:34 PM, Mark Giffin <mgiffin -at- earthlink -dot- net> wrote:
>
> > I recently saw the movie Passengers, which is about space travel in the
> > future. I enjoyed the movie but it was also remarkable because technical
> > documentation figured heavily in the plot. Many scenes involved someone
> > grabbing the user manuals for one piece of equipment or another, and then
> > following the docs to accomplish something (or not!). Several other
> scenes
> > involved machines talking to the person (with a talking 3D face
> sometimes),
> > telling the person what was happening, how to use the space suit, or
> > whatever it was.
> >
> > So hopefully we'll have work even far into the future! Unless it was all
> > automated.
> >
> > Mark Giffin
> > Mark Giffin Consulting, Inc.
> > http://markgiffin.com/
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