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>I'm documenting a software product on the NeXT platform. The product
>is also being developed for the SUN Open Look/Motif environment as
>well. Is there anyone who has had experience on both these platforms
>and who might be able to point out the user interface differences
>between these platforms?
Some ideas:
* Call both the appropriate Sun daughter (Solaris?) and
what remains of Next and ask them about published
user interface guidelines.
* Ask on comp.human-factors and comp.cog-eng (the two
human-interface newsgroups) and possibly on the
appropriate system-specific groups in the comp hierarchy.
* Do what you can to write the user-interface differences
out of the documentation. Will your audience level
(and the degree to which they're porting rather than
rewriting the software) support this?
* Last but hardly least: do what you can to get some time
"on the air" with both machines, either with your client/
employer (yours sounds like a contracting scenario) or
with whatever developer outreach services Sun and NeXT
might provide. In user interfaces, a good fiddlin' session
is worth a thousand words of documentation. You might be
made of sterner stuff than me, but I can't imagine writing
system-specific software manuals without having access to
the system (and any mockup or emulation of the software
that might be available).
Joe
"Just another personal opinion from the People's Republic of Berkeley"
