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Subject:Re: Two interfaces, one product From:Dianne Blake <write-it -at- home -dot- com> To:Techwriter <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 02 May 2000 12:25:20 -0700
scott -at- soffront -dot- com wrote:
>
> Hi,
> I need some recommendations. I am writing paper documentation for a
> product that has two different interfaces: one standard, the other
> through a Web browswer (Internet Explorer or Netscape Communicator).
I would probably opt to write two different documents, or at least two
different sections in the same document. I find that users tend to use
one interface or the other and that trying to sort out what works when
and presenting two different approaches and screen shots to do the same
thing is just too confusing for end users.
In addition, I've found that when it comes to releases, that one product
may get updated in a different time frame than the other. And in fact,
if one interface gets used all the time and the other is hardly used at
all, management may decide that only one of the products should survive
(because of development and maintenance time and budgets). Things can
really get out of whack then.
Definitely, for document control and release version control, I would
opt for two separate documents.
