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: Making them read the documentation From:Paul Goble <pg -at- pgcommunication -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Fri, 27 Apr 2001 16:53:32 -0600
Christine asked:
> Paul, was there anything in the *content* that users could
> have possibly mistaken for marketing fluff?
They didn't look at the document long enough to even read the
title, "Quick Start." When asked, they didn't even know what
it was they had tossed aside. All they knew is that it was
very colorful and thin.
The document was printed on large sheet of cardstock, and placed
so that it was the first thing they saw upon opening the box.
(Actually, the product came in two boxes. Box #1 contained
the Quick Start. Box #2 contained a "real" manual.)
The dominant visual elements were the title ("Quick Start") and
a sweeping curve which was intended to guide the eye through the
mostly-graphical steps.
> What proportion of your subjects overall reacted negatively to
> the visual design of the guide? Did you have any test subjects
> with the opposite reaction? (....she said, with a last
> glimmer of hope.)
We tried five subjects, all engineers, before we gave up. If I
recall correctly, four of them ignored the document. When the
document was pointed out to them after the test, they all "liked"
it and agreed that it would have been useful. *Sigh*
By way of contrast, the box also contained some downright ugly
sheets of paper, such as a packing list. The users examined each
of these documents closely, until they were confident that the
information was or was not relevant to their task.
*** Deva(tm) Tools for Dreamweaver and Deva(tm) Search ***
Build Contents, Indexes, and Search for Web Sites and Help Systems
Available 4/30/01 at http://www.devahelp.com or info -at- devahelp -dot- com
Sponsored by DigiPub Solutions Corp, producers of PDF 2001 Conference East,
June 4-6, Baltimore, MD. Now covering Acrobat 5. Early registration deadline
April 27. http://www.pdfconference.com.
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
