I’d Rather Be Writing – Tom Johnson

In one of the more interesting articles that Scott Abel has written this year, he gives his year in review.

Here’s an excerpt:

Throughout 2006, nothing was more evident than the increasing acknowledgement of the user as the focal point of all we do. Even Time Magazine made the user – more specifically, YOU – its Person of the Year for 2006. Sure, we’ve always touted the user as key — know thy audience is the first rule of any technical communication program – but until this year in particular, we were never really challenged to practice what we preached. We could skip steps like usability testing, persona development, and content modeling (who would notice?) in order to make a tight deadline. We’d rationalize our reality by saying, “We’ll do our best to make sure the next version is better,” provided we were given the information, tools, and time we needed to do better. Fat chance.

Isn’t it interesting that Time chose the user as the person of the year?