Re: Display, Displays, or Appears

["Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>]

The fundamental difference here is that the barn, tree
and mailbox are all fixed in their locations and are not
going to just spring up out of nowhere when the driver
approaches them (and in this case, if they did it would
be a good thing to tell someone driving a car that such
a thing was going to happen unless you both lived on
a place like Toontown where things like this happen
regularly).

This instruction would be more analagous to telling
a user how to pick one of the commands on a menu
bar at the top of the window out from the others when
all are already displayed.

Gene Kim-Eng


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bonnie Granat" <bgranat -at- granatedit -dot- com>
To: <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2008 4:30 AM
Subject: RE: Display, Displays, or Appears


> It seems so basic to me, just like giving directions to Grandma's house:
> "After you reach the top of hill, you should see a huge barn on the left
> about 200 feet from the road. There's an enormous tree halfway between the
> road and the barn. Turn left at the mailbox."
>
> Would anyone consider that the above would not be helpful?
>
> Bonnie Granat
> http://www.GranatEdit.com
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From:
>> techwr-l-bounces+bgranat=granatedit -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
>> [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+bgranat=granatedit -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l
>> .com] On Behalf Of Ned Bedinger
>> Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2008 6:00 AM
>> To: Downing, David
>> Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
>> Subject: Re: Display, Displays, or Appears
>>
>> Downing, David wrote:
>> > Lauren
>> >
>> > Okay, so you just refer to the window without explicitly saying it
>> > opened. That makes sense. However, I am still concerned about the
>> > situation where something goes wrong and the window isn't
>> displayed as
>> > it should be. You say that's outside the scope of the instructions
>>
>> Instructions fail if task analysis fails.
>>
>> Take the "Print" task as an example. Assume that you've ruled
>> out all of the peripheral print topics about changing toner
>> cartridges, installing, administering, configuring printer, ...
>>
>> You just want to write the procedure for the user who needs to print.
>> You know where the buttons that need clicking are. Have you
>> analyszed the task sufficiently to write a foolproof
>> procedure? Is a simple instruction telling how to locate and
>> click buttons enough for this task?
>>
>> Let's get serious about this. The user's goal in doing this
>> procedure is not to locate and click buttons. The procedure
>> is supposed to get something printed.  Failure to accomplish
>> that, with results like walking down the hall to the printer
>> room and finding no printout, aren't what this procedure is
>> about, is it?  It will be part of the result set if the
>> procedure abandons you before you before giving the result of
>> the print command.
>>
>> 1.  Click the Print button.
>>      The print job should appear immediately in the print queue.
>>      For more information, see "Print Queues."
>>
>> IMHO, foolproof does not come easy, but stating what the
>> result is supposed to be, is cheap, graphic insurance that
>> you, at least, haven't sent your users down the hall for no
>> good reason.
>>
>> Ned Bedinger
>> doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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