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>While I fully appreciate everything you
>said, I still think it would be very difficult
>to convince anyone outside our profession to give
>us an 8hr/pg timeline.
I wonder if that figure isn't reasonable.
OK, I don't think many of us need 8 hours to write a page of
instruction...takes me maybe 2-3 hours to create a detailed page of
steps.
However, add in:
- The capture, resizing, and tweaking of the one or two images.
- Adding a few callouts to the two images
- Making up your mind how to style the cross references, links, etc.
(should I include a page number? How about an underline...hmm, I can't
make up my mind)
- Create a new style or modify the style because I'm just not happy with
the amount of space between two particular style combinations that I
haven't used in combination before.
- Run through the 8 or 9 steps again and make changes.
- Run through the 8 or 9 steps again to check the changes.
- Spell check the document again
- Send out for review
- Get comments back and incorporate most of them..and explain why you
aren't going to include "THAT" markup.
- Speak to one of the reviewers and find out "what-the-hell is he
saying" in that scribble?
- Send out for review again.
- Spell check again
- Replace that image they just changed.
- Review one last time.
- etc.
Maybe 8 hours isn't too far off...or is it just the way I work?
John Posada
Senior Technical Writer
Isogon Corporation http://www.isogon.com
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