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Bill wrote:
"A hyperlink is a hell of a lot more than a jump from one location to
another. A hyperlink is, by definition, a trigger that initiates an action.
Whether that action is displaying another topic, playing a movie, playing a
sound, sending an email, or what have you is up to you. So yes, the
documentation is very accurate. The preconception that a hyperlink is a
jump from one location in a document to another is what makes the task of
following the instructions difficult."
I stand by my objection.
Adobe's documentation uses a broad definition of "hyperlink." But I would
argue that most users, even tech writers using Acrobat, have a narrow
definition of "hyperlink"--a hyperlink is something that takes you from one
place to another; that's why it's called a hyperLINK. (In the nearly 3
years I've been using Acrobat, I've used the "Movie" action zero times, the
"Execute menu item" action twice, and the "Go to view" action type, a.k.a.
hyperlink, countless times. I don't even remember what the other action
types are.)
The documentation is written for the users, not for Adobe's development and
documentation personnel. If users have a preconception that a hyperlink is
a jump from one location to another, the documentation should accommodate
that preconception. Accommodating the users' definition of "hyperlink"
could have been as simple as putting in a specialized procedure, "How to
create a hyperlink to another location in your document," and putting it
somewhere where users would find it right away.
This is a classic case of a technical writer using the mental model of the
developers instead of the mental model of the users. We've all seen
documentation like this that thoroughly explains the various widgets and
features of application X in some format that bears little resemblance to
how users will typically use the product. Then users can't find the
information they want because their mental model is different, even though
the documentation is "accurate." Accuracy is not the issue in this case;
usability is.
I'm seeing other posts at this moment that decry the narrow, impoverished
definition of "hyperlink" that typical users have. Tough; we write to where
the users *are*, not where we believe they should be.
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