RE: What audience should I target?

["Kathleen" <keamac -at- cox -dot- net>]

Yevgen,

In the worst case scenario, when Gale and Michael's suggestions won't
work, you can try another tack:

Try to get a feel for the "expected" user's sophistication and knowledge
by the types of things you're explaining. Then, write a short draft
aimed at the lowest common denominator and give it to the customer for
review and approval. (If you can't get a good feel, just do a draft
aimed at the least knowledge.) Explain to the customer that you need a
sense of what is appropriate, and they are the final judge (and "should"
have the necessary information). The most important thing is to be sure
that the instructions are complete, even for experienced/knowledgeable
users.

Without good information about the user, it's always safest to aim at
the basic level for the sake of usability. To address a wide range of
user skills, an introductory overview can suggest that experienced users
might want to review the highlights of a section (or use the review for
a reference), or point them to the next section they need. You can
always place more basic/complete instructions in a subsection or chapter
and point to it from other sections/chapters.

Good luck

Kathleen

-----Original Message-----
From: Gale Stafford
 
Your customer must employ hundreds of people who are familiar with the
technical skills of the intended audience. If I were you, I'd just ask
for a
one hour of time to interview a manager or some other SME in the
customer
support department. 

Gale Stafford
http://gstafford.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Borodkin, Yevgen
Sent: Friday, May 06, 2005 8:03 AM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: What audience should I target?


Hello everyone!
 
I am relatively new to the list, sorry if I am raising an old issue. 
 
My customer (a big international company) doesn't tell me anything about
the
intended audience of the hardware and software user documentation I am
writing. All I get is a specification and a few other supplementary
documents (data sheets and the like). It's not always easy to figure out
just how technically savvy the users are or may be. Any ideas how to
deal
with it?
 
Thanks a lot!
 
Yevgeny Borodkin




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