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Re: Error Message Appendix

Subject: Re: Error Message Appendix
From: Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 15:57:03 -0800

Dick Margulis wrote:

Dave,

I've done this, but it does not make for a user-friendly document. As a first pass at improving the situation, I asked a friendly developer to create a printout that showed all embedded error messages and the source file/line number where they appeared in the code. I then redlines the printout, and a developer spent a couple of hours updating them all. Now that we have a fully fleshed out development organization, the error messages are negotiated during the design phase, with the designer, programmer, and tech writer all able to review the design before the programmer implements it. This ensures that for the most part a tech writer has at least laid eyes on every error message and had the opportunity to clarify it.

Once - just once! - I have managed to use this practice not only to add decent error messages, but to have a link in each message to a detailed explanation of possible ways to solve the problem. Fortunately, the head programmer was very interested in interface design, and was willing to try it.

I'm biased, of course, but I was extremely proud of this system and the favorable reaction from the end-users.

--
Bruce Byfield bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com 604.421.7177

"To bring the dead to life
Is no great magic.
Few are wholly dead:
Blow on a dead man's embers
And a live flame will start."
- Robert Graves, "To Bring the Dead to Life"



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References:
Error Message Appendix: From: Dave Stewart
Re: Error Message Appendix: From: Dick Margulis

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