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Subject:Re: Medical Software Industry From:David Neeley <dbneeley -at- gmail -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 10 Nov 2004 13:41:27 -0600
Sonja,
Several suggestions, perhaps:
1) Have a native speaker from the target area do a light edit of your
manual to be sure that it is clear. Grammar usage differences between
the UK and the US, for example, are subtle at times, while your target
users are often of relatively limited education. A very minor example
(but one that would normally not be a major problem) is in the use of
the group or collective noun. In your writing, you began with "My
audience seem to be..." That is entirely correct in the UK, but in the
U.S. it would be "My audience seems to be..." The same is true with
other such nouns: committee, company, group, etc.--but there may be
other differences that are substantial enough to make this kind of
edit worthwhile.
2) Consider having your "cheat sheets" on the distribution disc in the
form of Acrobat files they can print out. Inevitably, printed
documents are misplaced, lost, damaged, etc. By including these
documents on disc, users can print out what they wish...and then
annotate them individually, for example.
3) If one of these cheat sheets is significant and often used, then
two suggestions:
a) Consider having it printed on heavy stock and laminated.
b) Your software interface is probably in need of serious
revision; it is likely not sufficiently "user-friendly."
David
> My audience seem to be the receptionists, and bookkeepers, not really
> the Doctors, as they all have people running their practices, from a
> reception and accounting point of view (which is essentially what our
> software is about)
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