Readers who don't read

["Eric J. Ray" <ejray -at- OKWAY -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU>]

     I have been running into quite a few extremely
     frustrating users in the past few weeks and I am
     looking for some advice, condolences, or suggestions.

     This is a little long, but please bear with me.

     As most of the people who use our User's Manual Modules
     are novices, I include quite a bit of metadiscourse
     about how the manual works. For example, in a ULTRIX
     module I recently finished, I included the following
     verbage right at the beginning of the mail section and
     again in the general information section at the
     beginning of the whole manual:

     > Mail commands are entered from the Message (MSG)
     > prompt (<  ). When you enter a MSG command, you will
     > only need to type the first letter of the command.MSG
     > recognizes and completes the command. You must press
     > <ENTER> after each command.
     ... (2 lines)
     > Enter the command in the format
     > shown by these examples:
     > A(nswer) 3 will allow you to answer message 3.
     > D(elete) 2,5 will delete messages 2 and 5.

     The system automagically finishes typing what you start
     (with "nwser" or "elete").

     I'll bet that I have had at least three upset, stuck,
     and confused users who have not only typed the full
     word (and generated a full screen of confusing error
     messages) but have also typed the "()" that I included
     to set off what they wouldn't type. BTW, the error
     messages start flashing on the screen immediately and
     don't wait for anything. If you type "an" you will get
     one error message before you can type anything else.

     Does anyone have an idea what to do about this? They
     don't read what I give them, but they follow all
     examples like lemmings heading for the sea. I
     considered just putting A or D in the manual, but I
     don't think it is too good to surprise users with
     unexpected sustem responses.

     What do you do in similiar cases? Or, in a broader
     sense, how do you get users to read the information
     about manual conventions?

     Unfortunately, this isn't an April fool's joke, even to
     the part about typing "D(elete)".

     Eric
     ejray -at- okway -dot- okstate -dot- edu