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It reassures me to hear that someone thinks that we will always
have "traditional" manuals, but I think the proliferation of what
writers used to call "job performance aids"--shorter,
conceptually focused documents treating special user tasks--the
proliferation of them and other design alternatives indicates a
fundamental shift not to different forms, but to supporting
different tasks.
Instead of seeing "data processing challenged" users we see more
and more "information processing challenged" users. They need
help sharing, storing, communicating--what I would call
"strategic" tasks. Documenters who can *afford* a Tecate in the
late 90's will have found a way to support these sophisticated
uses ;-).
