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Brian Harris Brian Harris
Brian Harris is a technical author who has been attempting to make software more comprehensible to the average person on the street for almost ten years. He has been at Red Gate since April 2007. In a previous life he'd rather forget, he was once an English teacher, having graduated from Oxford University with a degree in English literature during the last recession, with no clue what to do with the rest of his life.
What can Software Designers Learn from Video Games? Part 2
by Brian Harris | 15 May 2009 |  13 comments |
Developers of software that is used in the office need to be aware of what Games Developers are doing to make the learning of games intuitive. Games don't require you to read a manual or engage in training. Maybe Office software should inveigle the users into a... Read more...
What can Software Designers Learn from Video Games?
by Brian Harris | 05 March 2009 |
Application Developers and designers often seem addicted to playing video games. Is this wasted time? Perhaps not, if they are quick to learn from the game that there must be no blind alleys in software, you must always provide a way of making progress, and that... Read more...
SQL Response: Choosing Our Words Carefully
by Brian Harris | 17 September 2008 |  6 comments |
Historically, the profession of "technical author" emerged from the nascent aerospace and technology industries following the war, and brought with it a military-style rigidity of approach to standards and formality. But documenting (and putting words into) software... Read more...
SQL Response: Does Everything Need a Name?
by Brian Harris | 17 September 2008 |  1 comment |
Our overriding goal at Red Gate is to make our software more usable by "doing whatever works". That means to do whatever users are most likely to instinctively understand. As we analyse and consider every use of language in our applications, this sometimes leads me... Read more...
Chrome Browser: A Novel Approach to Language
by Brian Harris | 16 September 2008 |  8 comments |
As a Technical Author, one of the most important tasks that you face is to make the language of applications as obvious, intuitive and accessible as possible. Google's approach to language attempts to do this AND to reflect its overall ethos - that it's homely and... Read more...
Ziggurats, Batman and the Town Crier
by Brian Harris | 19 August 2008 |  1 comment |
We asked Brian for a description of the Help System for the software he's working on and ends up quoting Blake's poetry, discussing town criers, Ziggurats, security guards and the BRAD signal. Read more...
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