Re: Opinion on Options location

["Susan W. Gallagher" <sgallagher -at- EXPERSOFT -dot- COM>]

At 4:58 PM 2/6/96, Warren Turner wrote:

>What is the most user friendly and functional location for the
>users' options section (i.e. global defaults) in the User Manual.
>These items presently exist near the back of the manual in an
>advanced user section, the difficulty stems from the production of
>numerous forward references as the product has grown.

>Possible locations for the options are:

>1)As a section near the beginning of the user manual.....solving
>all, or nearly all, forward references.------->can you tell I
>prefer this one!

>2)Integration of the options in the relevant sections (e.g.
>where the forward references occur.

But, if you move the list of defaults from the back of the
book to the front, you'll just be trading forward ref's for
backward ref's, won't you???

Some users want to view all the defaults together and they
mostly don't care if the collection appears at the front of
the book or at the back.

Other users want to view the defaults that they're concerned
about in the chapter where related information (like how to
change the defaults) lives.

To satisfy the greatest number of users and to make the book
as usable as possible, create a section where all the defaults
can be seen together and *repeat* the individual values in the
appropriate chapters.

*Repeat*??? *Heresy*, you say??? Hard to maintain??? We constantly
make tradeoffs between easy-to-create and easy-to-use. You'll
have to decide where to draw the line.  ;-)


-Sue Gallagher
sgallagher -at- expersoft -dot- com