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Subject:Re: User Manual par excellance From:Brian Gordon <elasticsoul2003 -at- yahoo -dot- ca> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Tue, 20 Sep 2005 13:24:07 -0400 (EDT)
--- John Posada <jposada01 -at- yahoo -dot- com> wrote:
>
> Remember that not everyone knows everything about
> the product before
> they use it for the first time. Theymay know nothing
> about it...they
> weren't responsible for aquiring it, specing it,
> installing it,
> defining it..it's there and they need to know how to
> use it.
>
> I very much think any product manual has to have a
> section at the
> beginning that puts the product in context before
> explaining the
> purpose of each feature of the product.
>
I agree entirely. Clearly, this depends to an extent
at whom you are aiming your manual/product, but there
are many, many cases where the user will need/want to
know WHY before they'll spend much time poring over
HOW. Even home users often feel that software is
forced upon them - they don't really *want* to buy,
install, and learn all about antispyware software, for
example.
Users who don't need or want this section can easily
skip it - it needn't be long. In fact, it's far more
likely to be read if it's brief. I treat it like a
newspaper article: an attention-grabbing headline,
then the first paragraph contains the gist, and
subsequent sections (with clear, useful headers)
expand on features and benefits.
The idea is to move people closer to being enthused
about your product, or at least grudgingly accepting.
:-)
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