Re: Important Stuff They Don't Teach In Tech Writing School

["Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bonnie Granat" <bgranat -at- granatedit -dot- com>

> I suppose the last sentence was sufficiently vague for me to have
> ignored it -- I still do not know what it means!  Perhaps that is what
> you disagree with.

More likely I am simply associating the phrase used with the
behavior of the people who have said it to me, which may not
be in line with your reading of it or the meaning intended by
the person who wrote it.

> Do you mean to say some aspects of the product were not 
> documented, and that the user was left to figure things out 
> on his or her own without any help?

I mean that the same features that supported the needs of the
product's intended customer base could also support a number
of other applications, but a marketing analysis indicated that
the potential revenue that could be brought in by advertising
those applications to a different customer base could never
equal the cost of supporting those customers with documents,
tech support, etc., so a strategic decision was made to reply
to all inquiries about such potential applications with "that
application is not supported."  In other words, "we're not
claiming the product can do that, we're not instructing anyone
on how the product might be made to do it and we accept
no responsibility or liability if someone tries to use the 
product in any manner other than what we advertise and
instruct and the results are bad."  You'll find similar 
statements in the fine print of most product documents.
Under those conditions, a tech writer who continues to try
to document the unsupported features and defends the effort
with the mantra of "customer advocacy" has definitely lost
sight of his/her objectives.

Gene Kim-Eng


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