Re: I know I read that somewhere...

[SIANNON -at- VISUS -dot- JNJ -dot- com]

Susan W. Gallagher writes:
"I'm looking for the post that discussed installation instructions
for sys admins where the book showed lots of screens and the users
went by the pictures to install and missed a lot of decision points
in the text."

I'd be intrigued by this information, as well, due to a recent point of 
amusement/aggravation I experienced recently:

One of our projects had been drowning the team so that we had no time to 
address to this other, smaller project (an upgrade to an existing system).  
The decision was made to give that project to outside contractors.  
Concerned over whether the documentation they were producing was going to 
meet our needs, especially since I'm going to have to maintain it, I 
pounced on the (electronic only) docs as soon as we got them.
     I was appalled at several things I found, but the one that amused me 
was the installation guide they created.  It showed screenshots of the 
installation wizard, but no accompanying descriptions to indicate what 
configuration parameters or other data to enter into the respective 
screens, and the only screenshots that included text (to specify 
installation locations) included false/invalid text.  If this was an 
external product, I could understand the bogus text IF THEY NOTED IT AS AN 
EXAMPLE.  But (a) it is an internal product, designed and built to be 
installed in a specific, known environment and location, and nowhere else, 
and (b) they didn't give sufficient description of any of the steps to 
indicate the false text was an example, and not an expected default value.

....a picture may be worth a thousand words, but if they aren't the *right* 
words, there can be a problem.


Shauna
(who will be re-doing the docs we received to match the formats/structure 
we wanted, and filling in missing info. as needed. *sigh*)


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