[Hidden-tech] Cognitive slant of software

[Shel Horowitz]

At 12:45 PM -0500 12/11/09, Roger Williams wrote:
>  >>>>> Shel Horowitz <shel at frugalfun.com> writes:
>
>   > I like that Roger pointed out the cognitive framework...  I've started to
>   > use Apple's Pages... it thinks about how a writer (moi) might approach
>   > design, rather than how a designer would do it.
>
>Yes, that was a point that I made in the original thread about switching from
>Word to Pages as part of moving from a PC to a Mac.
>
>You understand Word's cognitive style as well as anyone.  It is good, in that
>it allows anyone to write a document that includes information in almost any
>format, which encourages the inclusion and analysis of all relevant data.
>
>My criticisms are as a technical writer from the standpoint of 
>document design.
>Word actively dumbs down the design sensibilities of its users, and makes it
>frighteningly easy for the normal business user to create bad documents.
>Because users are encouraged to fiddle with the minutiae of formatting at
>every step, users are forced to focus on appearance instead of content.
>
>--
>Roger Williams <roger at qux.com>
>Chief Technical Officer, Qux Corporation
>433 West Street, Suite 8, Amherst, MA 01002, USA
>Tel +1 413 253-6400 * Fax +1 508 302-0230 * GSM +1 508 287-1420

I know some people who are disciplined enough to do their writing 
first and format later--and one professional typesetter who works in 
Tex on Linux and strips all formatting out of any word doc. For 
myself, having been trained on typewriters, I focus mostly on the 
writing, at least on the first pass. I will put in subheads and 
bulleted lists, but that's about it (other than when doing resumes of 
fliers, where the format is a coequal component.

But then on the second pass I do sometimes spend more time than I 
ought to on the format.

Word 5.1 was a much more elegant interface than many of the later 
ones, with many keyboard shortcuts and very few modal, fixed, dialog 
boxes. However, newer versions support some very helpful features 
like Track Changes and multiple undo, and when the program crashes it 
usually doesn't destroy the file, as Word 5 too often did.
-- 

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