Re: Who's the User? (You're the user!)

[johanne -dot- cadorette -at- locusdialog -dot- com]

SIANNON -at- VISUS -dot- JNJ -dot- com wrote: Have any of you found, in your experience, 
whether overt clarification of  the audience with your SMEs helps them 
provide you with morethorough information?

I run into this a lot, because most of our guides are destined to system 
administrators who need to have a certain level of expertise with Windows, 
PBXs and telephony environments. Our developers often respond to my queries 
for more information with, ?oh, they?ll know how to do this.? While it?s 
true that most system administrators of our system will know how to do 
"this," it?s important that some process be documented. Why? Because 
somewhere, someone out there might not know. And documentation, even in the 
form of manuals, is about much more than explaining how to do something. 
It?s also an easily accessible archive, and an organized, user-friendly 
history of the product. Our marketing people and product engineers often 
use our guides to compare versions, or to help a client who has an older 
version, or just recall how something used to be done. If you look at it 
that way, then yes, it?s important to document stuff that people reading 
the guides might know.

Of course, it goes without saying that there are limits to this. As a rule, 
we avoid documenting procedures that concern other software. I wouldn't, 
for example, tell people how to start the computer or  fix problems with 
Windows, for example.

My two cents,

Johanne Cadorette
johanne -dot- cadorette -at- locusdialog -dot- com


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