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Subject:RE: Making them read the documentation From:Fred Brown <fred -dot- brown -at- allegrotechindexing -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 25 Apr 2001 15:22:44 -0400
Michele Marques wrote:
"Can users locate the relevant portion of documentation? Most people don't
want to sit and read a manual. They only turn to the documentation when they
get stuck, and they will only look at your documentation if it is easy to
locate the answer to their question. Maybe you need context-sensitive help,
a good index, or a re-write of the documentation that re-organizes
information to be useful in trouble-shooting."
A good index will go a long way in assisting users find information quickly
-- especially in online documents. Also look at how you've structured the
hypertext links. Full text searching or natural language searching can
assist the user as well. Typically, an index will assist a user to find the
most significant discussions on a topic or to get near to the information
they are looking for. Hypertext links and online searching can help the
user to locate additional information.
I suspect users may often be unaware that an index exists, and if so, if
it's any good. You may want to point out -- up front -- what information
search tools are available.
And doing some form of user task analysis at the beginning of the
documentation or system design process will provide much of the information
you need to design effective documention -- including the index and other
search tools.
Fred Brown
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