RE: minimalist manuals

[david -dot- locke -at- amd -dot- com]

This "downsizing" of documentation is Microsoft's concept. Carroll's
revolves around "Guided Discovery." These two things are not the same.
Microsoft is guided by the total disregard that the market leaders for
infrastructural software can have towards their end users and customers. To
these businesses, end users and customers don't matter at all. They have to
use the software period! 

Guided Discovery was not adopted, because it is out of sync with the
technology adoption lifecycle. It addresses a modeling audience, but can
only be done in companies with a lot of resources, or at a time when the
audience is no longer a modeling audience. The modeling audience is the
first audience or market for the technology. By the time a product is
produced, the audience no longer models. 

David 


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