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Norman, Donald A. 1999, The Invisible Computer, MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-14065-9. Chapter 9. Human-Centered Development
The Six Disciplines of User Experience.
User Experience (UE) is not a single disciple. At least six skills are needed, and they are almost never found in the same person. There are few places that provide education in this area. In any event, the six skill sets cut across traditional academic disciplines. Here is what it takes:
Technical Writers
People whose goal should be to show the technologists how to build things that do not require manuals
Technical writers traditionally have the cleanup job. When all is finished, they are called upon to make it look like the whole design was carefully orchestrated as a systematic whole. They are the cleanup artists, and often they get the least respect of all.
Technical writing is a difficult skill. It requires understanding the audience, understanding what activities the user wants to accomplish, and translating the often idiosyncratic and unplanned design into something that appears to make sense.
To a user-experience architect, the technical writer should be the key to the whole operation. Have them write the simplest, most elegant manual imaginable. Reward them for brevity. (Would you believe that some technical writers are rewarded for the length of the manual, as if a long manual is somehow more valuable than a short one? That is certainly perverse.) Test the manual to make sure that people can follow it. Then build the device to fit the manual. The technical writer should be a crucial part of the development team. Indeed, if the technical writer is completely successful, the device will be constructed so well, with such a clear conceptual model, that no instruction manual will be required.
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