In my opinion, the developer is the most ill-suited person to be writing the documentation. Their knowledge of the product is frequently too deep for the average user and the end result is often woefully inadequate for said average user. The fact that the developers are not native-English speakers merely adds insult to injury. Was this some pencil-pusher's idea of a cost cutting measure? Did he factor in the cost of all the additional phone support that will now be required? Or is your firm one of those that charges from the first minute for any support?
Berny Gagne Lead Writer Husky Injection Molding Systems Ltd. Bolton, Ontario, Canada -----Original Message----- From: framers-bounces+bgagne=husky...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-bounces+bgagne=husky.ca at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of mulholland4 Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 3:55 PM To: framers at lists.frameusers.com Subject: radical revamping of techpubs Hi, I would like to see what the group thinks of this scenario for writing documentation within a company? 1. Remove all existing tech writing staff from techpubs. 2. Replace these with software developers and specialists who know the software inside out and get them to write all of the documentation. These would now be known as Developer-techwriters. (It should be noted that none of these people has English as a first language, despite this being the primary market for the documentation.) 3. Hire editing staff to edit only the language and grammar of the documents written by the software specialists. The reasoning behind this scenario is; that this saves money as the developers know the software, and it is really cheap to get university students to come in and edit. I won't make comments on this just now as i'm sure there are many of us who just want to run screaming! thanks Mulholland _______________________________________________ You are currently subscribed to Framers as bgagne at husky.ca. Send list messages to framers at lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/bgagne%40husky.ca Send administrative questions to listadmin at frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
