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Interesting Product Review

Subject: Interesting Product Review
From: Berk/Devlin <armadill -at- earthlink -dot- net>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 06:40:49 -0700

On Mon, 17 Apr 2000 09:54:59 -0500, Bill Hartzer <BHartzer -at- cha-systems -dot- com> wrote:

What can we do, as Technical Writers, to encourage that our users read the manuals we create? Is it just a helpless situation? Or is it really a "nice test of the software" to "not have to Read The Manual"?

What I do is document Applications Programming Interfaces (APIs). My users BEG for my manuals!

And, actually, the only "software manual" (and, it's actually a book that did not come with the software), I use on a regular basis is Using Adobe FrameMaker.

Now, when I'm administering my Novell network before, during or after a "big event": I go page by page in the manual.

For HTML/XML information (the tags change so quickly that I can't afford a book); I look on the Web.

I don't think our work will ever go away, even if we start working on writing/editing the user interface and help screens that become PARTS of the software. (But wouldn't it be nice if no one ever needed to read the documentation? "Computer, set a course for Altair 7.")

--Emily



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