Re: Value added by technical documentation

["Wayne J. Douglass" <wayned -at- VERITY -dot- COM>]

At 03:45 PM 3/7/97 -0500, John Bell wrote:

>One project produced by a former employer was so poorly designed that the
writer
>I assigned to the project was overstressed. The manual ended up being 4-5 times
>bigger than it should have been if the UI had been designed properly. The
support
>effort needed on that product was way out of line compared to our other
products.

I used to have a slogan to describe this situation: "You can't write a
manual that's better than the product."

I remember getting a reader response card complaining that the installation
procedure in a manual was too complicated. They were right, but that's how
the product was installed.

--Wayne Douglass

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