> While a role as a tech writer or a tester isn't going to give you the > vast majority of the skills you need for a career in design - it can > certainly give you a good hard lesson in some of the underlying > problems that good design addresses. That can only help I think :)
Sure. When you're madly trying to document menus and interface designs that are clumsy or non-intuitive, in some companies you'll be the first person thinking "my goodness, this would be so much more usable if...". At least where I worked, the QA testers were simply testing features, and were so familiar with the software and focused on internal issues that they didn't seem to notice interface concerns. They were too close to the software and business goals, not focused out on customers. Tech writing doesn't give you graphics design, illustration, or drawing skills, and won't often give you time to work in Photoshop or with CSS and HTML either. But it certainly can lead you through to designing navigation, and graphics principles such as those involved with readable typography, designing layouts, and printing colours effectively. You may need to gain those skills through after-hours work like courses and volunteering, but you'll be the best person to see their importance and apply them well. You'll learn about usability, and you might be the first person in the company who notices the menus are poorly laid out or the properties are hard to understand and poorly labeled. Because you're already the one trying to make up for it. Once you have the in and have proven yourself, it's a good time to offer suggestions and help developers design it well. After all, they don't *want* to know how best to lay out menu options, they just want to code the darn things. And business analysts can understand the metrics and liaise with customers, but usually see in terms of ROI and "easy to use" rather than specifics as to how interfaces are not intuitive. Cheers, Erica ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
