Sheila Black (TC-Forum 2-98, pg. 22) disagreed with the statement "Of course, no company will allow a TW to contribute to this part (the User Interface) of the developing process."

I would agree with her assertion that some R&D groups do in fact seek the comments and advice of the users. For example, when I worked as the trainer of controlled language technical writing and translation systems at Caterpillar, we strongly encouraged the technical authoring users (i.e. writers, editors, translators, translation post-editors) to participate in sessions on interface and system design and enhancement. When some of them found through much use that the already developed applications were inadequate for the tasks to be done in a production environment, they took the initiative to push for enhancements that have consequently greatly improved the usability of the applications. Translators were also included from the very beginning, in the design of the translation side of the Workflow management system. This inclusion resulted in significantly fewer changes to the Translation Workflow modules than to the Authoring Workflow modules. Get the users involved from the beginning!