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Deborah asked about whether "it would be beneficial to have a
separate booklet listing just the basics of adding, editing, and
deleting devices from our system."
Deborah:
I think that's an excellent idea. My experience, both as a writer and as
a user, is that any sort of abbreviated, "cheat sheet" material is very
valuable and useful. I document both hardware and software for our
product, and I produced something similar to go with our software
manual. What served our purposes was (1) a "map" of the system, so that
the user could see all of the nested functions and under which tabs they
could be accessed, and (2) a printed version of our Help Page, which is
literally one page that lists all commands and how to perform them
(i.e., edit user, retrieve user, edit alarm settings, etc.). I've heard
from our users that these two pieces of the manual, along with our
"getting started" or quick start section, are frequently consulted. In
the future, if necessary, we may expand these two pieces into a "cheat
sheet" booklet like you are considering now. Go with what fits your
needs, but in my experience this is a useful road to follow.
