Re: Windows 3.1 to Windows 95

[Deborah Hemstreet <deborah -dot- hemstreet -at- gmail -dot- com>]

Actually, I believe that Sarah is completely right there. It helps to 
explain the issue, for example of the Master Document feature never 
being fully debugged enough for us to rely on it.

Yet, I have to admit, over the years, I have come to have a respect for 
MS Word that I did not have in the beginning. When we take the time to 
learn, and learn well, it is an incredibly powerful tool... I've created 
documents in it that had others amazed. but it was not really amazing, 
it was taking the time to learn, read, test, try, and try again.

I too get frustrated by the seemingly to me unnecessary changes. If an 
entire interface is changed, with little of no new functionality, I 
often wonder why...

But this gets into marketing and I really do not like marketing hype. I 
prefer a straight message that lets me decide what tool is best for my 
purposes. But again, as Sarah pointed out, we Tech Writers/Communicators 
are not the run of the mill public using or buying these tools.

Just my two thoughts on this election day morning.

Deborah

Sarah Blake wrote:
>> It seems to me that Microsoft devoted their efforts with Office 2007
>>     
> to the
>   
>> casual user, failing to take into consideration the skilled users who
>>     
> rely
>   
>> on advanced functions. 
>>     
>
> I agree with this completely.  It seems to be far easier to access the
> kind of basic formatting and layout functions that casual or basic users
> usually want, but the more advanced features that I use all the time
> take quite some unearthing to find.
>
>   
>> One of the mantras of technical communication is audience analysis
>>     
> which
>   
>> should also apply to software development. I'm of the opinion that
>>     
> Microsoft
>   
>> devoted their efforts to those who're not skilled with the tool and
>>     
> forgot
>   
>> about those of us who use it for a living.
>>     
>
> However, it is entirely possible that they /did/ analyse their audience;
> how many people are there out there who use Word in the ways that we do,
> compared with the number who just want to get a basic document down on
> paper?
>
> That I don't like it doesn't necessarily mean they didn't do the best
> thing for their business; as companies have an irritating habit of
> doing...
>
> Sarah Blake
> Senior Technical Author
> Micro Focus
>
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authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
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