In a new report, John Maeda explains why writing is a must-have skill for designers.
Source: Forget Coding: Writing Is Design’s “Unicorn Skill”
Thanks to McKinnon-Mulherin Inc. for posting this in Facebook. It was written in 2017, but so much of this article applies. The coding doesn’t matter too much if the content–especially the writing–well, sucks. This article outlines several reasons why.
Even so, as I grade papers for the technical editing class that I taught this past semester, I am reminded of people who can’t write well. And I wonder where things fall apart in their education? I mean, I was a decent grammar student as a kid, but I was no writer. And yet, with a good foundation, I’ve been doing some sort of writing through my entire professional life, through several careers. I went to back to school to validate and beef up my skills. How do people who work in coding, business, marketing, sales, journalism, communications, or other careers that involve writing not have a good foundation anymore? I’m not saying this is true of everyone, but you know it’s out there. You know you’ve seen it in others. Is it something not stressed enough at a young age, or glossed over as we progress through our education? I’m thinking that many teachers outside of English classes aren’t enforcing correct writing, which isn’t helping anything. If anything, it’s making it worse. And as this article points out, it’s now a “unicorn” skill that really shouldn’t be. We need more people to have these skills more than ever!
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