Fw: Keyboard AND Mouse Instructions <opinions>

[dan -dot- gallagher -at- pulsartech -dot- com]

Hi fellow Tech Whirlers,
This has been bugging me for a while now. And with all the talk about how
complex instructions should be I thought I'd pass it by you folks.

My company's audience is fairly technical, I mean, they're typically relay
engineers or at least technicians who can perform those types of tasks.
Pulsar makes communications boxes (fiber or Power-Line carrier) that talk
between utility substations and perform protective relaying. Our software,
with help, is embedded in the box for user control.

The question is, should I include BOTH keyboard AND mouse instructions in
my documentation? It seems to me that anyone turning on a pc these days is
usually (at least the majority) using a mouse for everything. It's a real
hassle and clutter to include "press [Alt] [P], then [C] etc." over and
over and over again everywhere there's a menu command (of which there are
many). I'm not trying to be lazy here, I just think it extremely clutters
up the documentation. And who knows, it may confuse some. I do put a
wingding keyboard in front of k/b cmds and a wingding mouse in front of
mouse cmds. But still.......

Thanks.


  Daniel Gallagher -- Technical writer/Graphic designer
                       Pulsar Technologies, Inc.
   4050 N.W. 121 Ave. Coral Springs, FL 33065 U.S.A.
       954-344-9822 ext. 243  http://www.pulsartech.com


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