Are the Inmates Writing the Documentation?

[Tom Campbell <klook -at- EUDORAMAIL -dot- COM>]

I recently read about a new book by Alan Cooper, The Inmates Are Running the Asylum.  I haven't read the book, but judging from the reviews on Amazon.com, Cooper says that present-day software is often coded with little or no up-front design (or with disregard for the design), and with little concern for the user.  Too much software, he says, ends up with extra enhancements that make it harder to use, not better.

Now in my experience, these problems are often not the developers' fault, but instead result from scope creep on the part of the customer(s) or management, changing deadlines and priorities, and other factors outside the developers' control.  (I recall an interesting letter to the editor in the one of the computer trade mags a couple of months ago protesting an article critical of "cowboy coding."  "Please," the developer wrote in his letter, "impose more standards!  Make us follow structure!  If only we could get management to think that way!")

But my reason for mentioning this book here is not so much to get into that discussion (although I couldn't resist), but to pose the parallel question: How often do we write documentation, design web sites, create online help and EPSSs, etc., without taking the effort to scope and design the product in advance?  Aren't we often guilty of the same things of which Cooper accuses developers?  (And don't we labor under the same constraints?)

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Tom Campbell
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"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."
--Mark Twain
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