[Elecraft] Need for advice was; (More Thorough Documentation)

[samuel ernst-fortin]

Bill,
FWIW: my background is EE with a minor in Industrial Psych (specifically Human 
Factors / Ergonomics / Usability Engineering). One book which resonated with me 
as an engineer is "Psychology of Everyday Things". In it, the author discusses 
mental models, and those of the developer vs. those of the user. When those 
mental models fail to intersect or the mental model of the user is inaccurate 
(both will often be the case with a complex system) - you have the problem being 
described by the various users here.

This is a field of study that gets a lot of attention in the Aviation community 
with Flight Management Systems and highly complicated flight deck automation.

To be more terse and to this point: the mental model of the developers as to how 
the K3 rig features are designed to work and be operated for maximum performance 
hasn't been effectively communicated or fostered in the user community. This is 
not a situation specific to the K3 of course. In some respects the rig's 
features drives the operators actions instead of the other way around... and 
people are fumbling around with them till they seem to get something that 
"works".

Luckily, this situation can be cured. A K3 is no Boeing 787 Flight Management 
System.

As to "nobody reads books", while I think this is true of some segment of the 
population (in engineering school - I knew many people who never read their 
textbooks... turned in pristine books as used)... I still have mine and often 
refer to them at home and at work - that "model" doesn't accurately describe the 
HAM community as a whole. 


Personally, I like and will forever prefer books, where I can hold it or put it 
down, annotate and dog-ear and mark and flag pages, navigate it as I wish and 
see the totality of the topic subject matter, gauge it by it's physical 
dimensions. I don't find the "massively hyper-linked, ever-changing, fragmented 
and presented in many silly windows" means of communicating technical 
information nearly as effective.

I prefer books. :)
Sam, KJ4VPI




________________________________
From: Bill VanAlstyne W5WVO <w5wvo at cybermesa.net>
To: Don Cunningham <wb5hak at martineer.net>; Wayne Burdick <n6kr at elecraft.com>; 
n4zr at contesting.com
Cc: Elecraft List <elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Mon, December 6, 2010 10:37:41 PM
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Need for advice was; noise reduction

Don et al.,

As a pro technical writer, I should like to address myself to your point.