Re: inhouse vs outside doc (RE: Good/bad docs)

["Rebecca P. Rachmany" <purple -at- NETMEDIA -dot- NET -dot- IL>]

There is twisted marketing logic behind the choice to write documentation
so inadequate that users are willing to shell out another fifty bucks to
purchase documentation for their software. If you are the marketing
department, and you see third-party documentation on your shelf, maybe you
think about how popular your product is to deserve all this literature.

If I were the in-house technical writer looking at that third-party
literature, I would feel humiliated. The overwhelming majority of technical
communicators think that the documentation enclosed with the product should
provide the user with full instructions on using the product.

Microsoft is the clear leader in providing useless documentation with its
software. I get maximal utility from my "Office" manuals by using them to
prop up my computer screen. Microsoft does not need to provide good
documentation with their products, because people have to buy their
products anyhow. However, for most of us, the documentation our
companies/customers provide is the only documentation our users can get.
IMO, it is outrageous to charge extra for decent documentation. It is even
more outrageous that third parties manage to produce better documentation
than the in-house writers.

Rebecca Rachmany
General Manager
TECH-TAV technical and end-user documentation
PO Box 2419 Tel Aviv 61024
info -at- tech-tav -dot- com
972-3-6090416
http://www.tech-tav.com

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