TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Peggy Lucero reports: <<Anyone know of studies/articles that discuss
how to get users to read your help documentation?>>
Attaching dollar bills to the pages at least gets them to flip pages,
or so I've heard. <g> More seriously, I'm not aware of any good way to
"make" people read documentation. You can create an interface so lousy
that they have no choice, but I wouldn't recommend that.
<<I've written new user guides for various sections of a naval medical
website and am now trying to determine best practice/method to get our
user community to read them!>>
There's this whole "obeying orders" thing you can take advantage of.
<g> But seriously: if the information is essential to their job
performance, then they'll be motivated to read it. If not, and if not
reading it has no consequences, how can you possibly motivate them?
--Geoff Hart ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca
(try geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com if you don't get a reply)
SEE THE ALL NEW ROBOHELP X5 IN ACTION: RoboHelp X5 is a giant leap forward
in Help authoring technology, featuring Word 2003 support, Content
Management, Multi-Author support, PDF and XML support and much more! http://www.macromedia.com/go/techwrldemo
From a single set of Word documents, create online Help and printed
documentation with ComponentOne Doc-To-Help 7 Professional, a new yearly
subscription service offering free updates and upgrades, support, and more. http://www.doctohelp.com
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archiver -at- techwr-l -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
