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Be first to market with this and I think you've got a winner. Otherwise,
you could at least have a good idea of what users do and do not find useful
in help. Imagine if we could design help about those topics that users just
DO NOT understand? We could do away with those topics and appendices, etc.,
that users find completely a waste of time and never even use.
Having said this, I'm off to a user meeting where I'm told I have to create
custom help for this one client since they're our biggest moneymaker. Gee,
can anyone say version control?
-----Original Message-----
From: Barry Kieffer [mailto:bkieffer -at- ims -dot- com]
Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2000 5:41 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: RE: Free CuCat Device uses Barcodes to launch web sites
Back on topic:
If we in technical writing could work with customer service and marketing
just
think what we could do with this CuCat technology.
Every time a customer (user) scanned the little barcode to get more
information
on a topic, all would be notified.
Would it not be cool if you could look at the database records and find out
that
more than five customers were looking for more information on a given topic
because they used their CuCat to seek more information.
I for one would embrace any technology that lets me get into the head of my
customers and figure out what it is that they still do not understand. CuCat
-
someday - might open the door to that knowledge.
<snip>