RE: "Technical Writing as a Part of User Experience"

[Slager Timothy J <Timothy -dot- Slager -at- dematic -dot- com>]

I donât find it particularly depressing. I tell myself Iâm being innovative. â (And, by the way, it doesnât take too many times of their seeing what I mean before I get some respect.)

Oh, and on a critical project, I once motivated warring parties to agree by bringing fresh-baked cookies, opening the container so we could smell them, and promising to share them after we all signed off.

We all want to protect our territory at times; they arenât bad people. Could they be more sensible? Sure. But I wouldnât give up a good job because a few people donât appreciate my input.

My 2p

From: Jack DeLand [mailto:jackdeland -at- adamcharlesconsulting -dot- com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2018 4:06 PM
To: Slager Timothy J
Cc: Keith Hood; Caroline Tabach; TechWhirl (techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com)
Subject: Re: "Technical Writing as a Part of User Experience"

Well, that's depressing, Tim. Reminds me of the "bring your developers some cookies" argument. We are professionals at what we do and part user advocate/part UI dev/part a hundred other things Software Dev never thinks of. I've studied and improved UI for 20 years but always found the resistance in companies I worked for to be very high. It IS territorial. My solution was to stop working for companies that didn't appreciate my efforts. Maybe we should all do that. Eh whot?

Jack DeLand

On Tue, May 22, 2018 at 3:58 PM, Slager Timothy J <Timothy -dot- Slager -at- dematic -dot- com<mailto:Timothy -dot- Slager -at- dematic -dot- com>> wrote:
Yeah, that doesn't work very well. I find it more effective to go and ask a lot of stupid questions: "I don't understand this. Do you mean this or that?" "Why is this field labeled differently from (or the same as) that one?" "What does this mean?"

When they explain it to you, they sometimes provide good answers. Other times they go, "Hmm, I see what you mean." Then you kid them about not knowing who they are designing for, being too smart for their own good, and making usable interfaces. Sometimes that gets results; sometimes not.

tims

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+timothy -dot- slager=dematic -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com<mailto:dematic -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+timothy.slager<mailto:techwr-l-bounces%2Btimothy.slager>=dematic -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com<mailto:dematic -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>] On Behalf Of Keith Hood
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2018 3:14 PM
To: Caroline Tabach
Cc: TechWhirl (techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com<mailto:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>)
Subject: Re: "Technical Writing as a Part of User Experience"

I tried for years to get developers to let me get involved with the UI -
tool tips, wording on the control labels, etc. It always came down to
defending their territory.
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