TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Re: An Engineer has infected my young mind! From:"Sella Rush" <sellar -at- mail -dot- apptechsys -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 18 May 2000 16:07:42 -0700
I agree with Andrew and Lisa--there may be a valid reason for both
task-based procedures (tutorials are a different animal) and reference.
(I'm not a doormat, but I never ignore the comments of the engineers I work
with, too often they have a very good perspective. What I do ignore is
attitudes.)
A note: don't assume or argue for procedures on the basis that they're
helpful for novice/inexperienced users. They have a much wider usage.
Procedures help all users accomplish a task quickly and completely; whether
they're written with a novice or an expert in mind is up to you. (For
example, telling an expert to use the mouse button to click on a menu item
to view commands is probably not appropriate, while telling a novice to
choose Format : Paragraph is just plain sadistic.)
I'm not sure what kind of application we're talking about here and who the
users are. I can comment that one of my novice mistakes as a tech writer
(also a lone tech writer) was to assume that all documentation can (and
should) be forced into a task-based format. Not only is this impossible,
it's not useful.
Tech writers (particularly those working alone) need to be aware of the many
types of users and documentation available. This is not something I was
taught in my college courses, which emphasized task-based instructions.
In particular, admin people are well served by short specific task-based
procedures because of the nature of their job (their most important resource
is the troubleshooting guide, which should have step-by-step procedures for
resolving trouble). Developers, on the other hand, need more conceptual
information because their work is less easily defined. Both need a
significant amount of reference material.
Some information is simply reference material. Can you imagine taking an
API reference and trying to replace it with task-based procedures? Anyone
creating a database in MS access might want to look up the type and amount
of data allowable in a memo field as opposed to a text field.
