Re: The audience doesn't know what it needs was: RE: What is "well Written"?

[John Posada <jposada01 -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

> Uh, excuse me, is this true of you, as members of the audience 
> for tech writing tool documentation? Do you not know what it is
> that you need from it? 
> Why would you assume that users of any other application are any
> different in that respect?

We have a customer...a VERY large organization...in its space,
probably one of the top three in the world.

They've made requests to us over and over "We want more
documentation."

Know what? They don't want MORE documentation...they want better
documentation. They want documentation that gives them what they
need. They think that if you tell them EVERYTHING, then it has to
include what they are looking for, when in reality, double the amount
of documentation and even if we ended up giving them what they
needed, they wouldn't be able to find it.

Wouldn't it be better to qualitatively find out what they are looking
for and give that to them?

John Posada
Senior Technical Writer

"They say everyone needs goals. Mine is to live forever.
So far, so good."
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