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I'd say Bill Burns hit the nail on the head--sounds like a great
justification for doing some task analysis/usability studying. Find out
exactly what assumptions they're making, where they're unsure of
themselves, etc.
Re duplication, I do tend to duplicate procedural information because I
don't want to force the user to be flipping back and forth. For my
audience, duplication doesn't get in the way like it would if they were
simply reading the text, which (except for the intro section) they
*never* do. There is, of course a volume issue after a certain point;
this is where organization *may* help out. Usability analysis should
help out here
The only other suggestion you might look into is using more graphics for
a non-english-speaking audience. May boost confidence?
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Sella Rush mailto:sellar -at- apptechsys -dot- com
Applied Technical Systems, Inc. (ATS)
Bremerton, Washington USA
Developers of the CCM Database
