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Re: Thinking like a user, or sticking to tried and true?

Subject: Re: Thinking like a user, or sticking to tried and true?
From: "Edgar D' Souza" <edgar -dot- b -dot- dsouza -at- gmail -dot- com>
To: "David Castro" <thejavaguy -at- gmail -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2006 17:59:47 +0530

Well, if the overview was an executive summary (or shorter) of what
the document covered, as a user I might find it very useful in
deciding whether I had finally gotten hold of the right document for
my needs or not...

Ed.

On 12/21/06, David Castro <thejavaguy -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:

I am working on a short document that is going to be used to train
some network technicians on how to copy settings from one router to
another. The documents that this document was based on have had an
overview section at the beginning. The document that was delivered to
me to edit & format didn't have any content in this section, but I
could fairly easily create content based on the rest of the document.

However, in thinking about what my users are like (my SMEs are also
net techs), I realize that they're going to immediately skip the
overview and jump right into the nitty gritty. So, the question is
whether to think like a user and leave off the overview, or create one
because "there's always been one" and because "it's good practice to
start by telling them what you're going to tell them and end with
telling them what you told them."

Which do you do when you're faced with this decision? And why?
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Thinking like a user, or sticking to tried and true?: From: David Castro

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