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When I interviewed for my current job (this was about 2-1/2 years ago), my
interviewers and I spent a lot of time talking about manuals in general: which
ones we liked, which ones we hated. I was working for a sister company at
the time, and had tried to use a manual for a mainframe-type spreadsheet
program called QCALC. It was the worst manual I'd ever encountered. (Turns
out that one of the interviewers--the guy who is actually my boss's boss--had
had the same problems with that manual. I think that was one of the things
that helped open the door for me here: we were both determined to ensure that
the manuals for *our* software wouldn't be so incredibly unusable.)
Since then, I've found other manuals that I really like: the PageMaker manuals
and the manual I received with my Eric's Ultimate Solitaire game (all work and
no play ...!) Both are well done and thorough, and while they have very
different tones, both are very well-suited to their audiences.
Just my two cents.
Patty Ewy
pewy -at- icontrol -dot- anza -dot- com
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