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Re: Chattiness in manuals

Subject: Re: Chattiness in manuals
From: Dick Margulis <margulisd -at- comcast -dot- net>
To: SaraTörök <sara -dot- torok -at- se -dot- nucletron -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2006 09:33:19 -0400

SaraTörök wrote:

I'm looking for an answer to my question, a solution to my problem, facts, facts, facts. Don't waste my time with chitchat, jokes and anecdotes. I'm not up for it right now. I'm trying to do my job.

Maybe it's cultural...



Maybe it is, but setting that aside for the moment, a common behavior observed in people who are in a hurry and who can't be bothered with what mere subordinates tell them is that, confronted with a computer that is not giving them instantaneous visual feedback but is instead displaying an hourglass, many of them start banging randomly on the keyboard.

It seems to me that if you are documenting a procedure that includes the necessity of waiting until a long process runs its course and that does not have built into it a progress bar or other indicator of time remaining, it would not be a bad thing to advise the reader to chill for a few minutes, lest they start banging on keys and clicking things, thereby disrupting the process and leaving the computer in an unstable state.

But maybe it's cultural...

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Re: Chattiness in manuals: From: SaraTörök

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