atw: Re: Vale technical writing?
- From: Bill Parker <bill@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2012 09:55:07 +0800
I think Tony Self has no contact with the real world.
I am dealing with scientists and engineers who need to deliver plain documents
in Word, and if their readers cannot read them, that's a failure in
communications straightaway.
Here's an example. Your firm manages an FPSO. A seriously large converted oil
tanker that has a drilling rig at one end, a helipad and storage tanks. You are
in the thick of complex procedures, safety requirements. You write SOPs, you
write reports from the broken rail to the serious accident.
Where's the time to get into the fancy stuff when the boss in Houston wants a
report in Word that he or she can read ASAP? The KEY issue is clear, correct,
comprehendible writing produced in the quickest way possible. These guys do
not have time to scratch themselves, and many are FIFOs. And Australia is
currently dependant on them and their colleagues in ore mining to keep some
semblance of an economy going.
Bill
On 26/02/2012, at 8:33 AM, Geoffrey wrote:
> Hi austechies
>
>
>
> Some of you will have received, as I did, an invitation to attend an ASTC
> presentation by DITA evangelist Dr Tony Self. Here is the outline of the
> presentation Tony intends to give, exactly as received in the invitation:
>
> Henry Ford revolutionised car manufacture when his production line replaced
> the method where cars were hand-made by artisans. Famously, Henry Ford
> offered the Model T in "any colour... so long as it is black". There are
> parallels in technical communication. Many technical communicators are still
> clinging to hand-crafted documentation, creating custom layouts and
> "tweaking" formatting, when new modular methods are vastly more efficient.
> The age of offering documents in any "colour" the customer wants is over.
> And just as car manufacture has long since moved to automation, technical
> communication too must embrace automation, with XML providing the technology
> platform to make this possible.
>
>
>
> Let's throw open for discussion three points stated or implied in Tony's
> outline:
>
>
>
> 1. So "the age of offering documents in any colour the customer wants
> is over". This sounds like the tail wagging the dog. Worse, it sounds like
> a recipe for destroying the technical writing profession. Imagine this: in
> 2011 you wrote a well-received set of documents for a client designed to
> the client's specifications. In 2012 you are invited by that same client to
> write another set of documents, and to the same specification. But you baulk
> at this, saying "Sorry, but the age of offering documents in any colour the
> customer wants is over. I can give you documentation in any colour as long
> as it's black .. oh, and it's got to be produced in XML as well". How many
> freelancers out there are willing to give that approach a try? I strongly
> suspect that If that became our modus operandi, it would soon be the end
> technical writing. (Henry Ford had a monopoly on the market; we don't.)
>
>
>
> 2. Modular methods are vastly more efficient, says Tony. Well that
> might be so above certain scales, but even so, is efficiency the primary
> goal of documentation? If it was, perhaps we should be writing all our
> documentation in Notepad and abandoning graphics. We don't do that, and we
> don't because we correctly realise that what readers need must be a part of
> the equation, not just what is most efficient or cheapest. (A parallel: the
> most efficient way to remove a tumour in the occipital lobe might be to
> lop off the entire lobe. Would the patient like that?) If XML publishing
> and DITA offered more efficient means of documenting AND offered us
> readability and usability at least equal with what our current methods
> offer us, perhaps we might sit up and listen. But, by Tony's own admission,
> they do not. (Recall: tweaking formats to achieve a more logical pagination
> is not on offer in the black-and-black world of XML publishing.)
>
>
>
> 3. Despite all the fanfare and hoopla surrounding the advent of XML
> publishing and DITA, is Tony really saying that the very best that XML and
> DITA will ever be able to give us is one-colour-fits-all documentation? So,
> there can be no tweaking of formatting and pagination to improve the
> usability and readability of our documents. No stylistic artefacts to meet a
> client's marketing imperatives. No breaking of a pre-determined content
> structure to accommodate a novel yet instructionally superior placement. (It
> sounds like we've hit the same brick wall we hit when we realised, 30 years
> ago, that SGML wasn't going to be much chop.) So why are we being
> encouraged to adopt a technology that is so obviously inferior to what we
> now have? Efficiency gains, are told. But is that a strong enough reason to
> abandon the flexibility needed to best meet the communication and
> instructional design imperatives that have always driven our profession?
>
>
>
> We write to impart practical information to people who need it, and in ways
> that maximise their uptake of that information. That's our overriding goal
> as technical writers, and it's why most of us do fuss about issues of
> readability and usability. So why should we adopt any technology that limits
> us in our ability to meet that overriding goal? Technology should not be our
> master; it is the needs of our readers that is paramount.
>
>
>
>
>
> Cheers
>
>
>
> Geoffrey Marnell
>
>
>
> <winmail.dat>
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