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I should have mentioned...while you can include the below type of material
in the instruction, I mainly use the process for myself to help me write the
instructions. The diagramming is so that I'm sure I don't forget or assume
anything.
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>How many of you would likely have caught the omission
>that embarrassed our customer?
>
>Is this one of those "you live and learn" situations,
>or is it "a competent and thorough TW would have
>covered all the scenarios that a customer would
>encounter"?? I confess that his situation never even
>crossed my mind.
The trick is not to think of every permutation, but to develop a process of
defining the procedure so each permutation is addressed automatically.
I'm a big fan of visual logic decision trees which I do in Visio to help me
determine how to write the instructions.
It will be tough to visualize in text, but example:
1) Do you have a token
Yes - Initialize it and go to step 3
No - Go to step 2
2) Do you Need a token
Yes - Contact xxx and when received, go to step 1
No - Got to End
John Posada
Senior Technical Writer
Barnes&Noble.com
jposada -at- book -dot- com
NY: 212-414-6656
Dayton: 732-438-3372
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