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> However, with regard to format, consistency, and adherence to company style,
> don't give them short shrift. While they have no purpose without good
> content, they can and do have a subtle but powerful effect on a reader's
> perception of the quality of the doc or doc suite, and thus on the doc's
> usefulness to the reader. A whole suite of docs that have a consistent and
> appealing format and writing style (even if produced by different writers)
> can have a strong confidence-inspiring effect on the reader. I would never
> entrust editing/enforcement of these items to an admin type.
You make a good point Brent. I have tended to work on smaller
projects/teams, where I have my arms around a whole project and the
standards and style for the "suite" of documentation were maintained
mostly in my head. In one instance, I did most of the documentation for
over two years, and I had a style for interacting with the audience (HR
professionals). I always talked about things in the same way, used the
same terms and the same styles until we completely switched to a new
presentation format developed somewhere else. Even then, I knew how we
talked about things.
When I worked in the IT dept of a company that produces top-flight
desktop publishing software, I was in the creative department one day
and overheard a conversation where a writer was trying to get somebody
to change the user doc template to include a fourth-level heading style.
The person in charge of the styles insisted that the writer would simply
have to find a way to convey the information using the existing
template. Now perhaps that information would have been better off under
a fourth level heading. But, to your point, none of the rest of the doc
would've been structured that way and it might have violated the user's
expectations.
Lisa Wright
Technical Writer
PeakEffects
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