RE: Tracking off

["Giordano, Connie" <Connie -dot- Giordano -at- FMR -dot- COM>]

Atticus and all,

Which is why you either explain upfront that they should have a working
knowledge of windows, or you create a "dummies" level tutorial.  Accuracy
yes, but you may have to adjust your documentation set according to the
expertise level of your audience.  My current known audiences:

Users familiar with Windows, not Browsers
Users familiar with Windows, Browsers, and our old Windows based
application.
Users familiar with Windows, Browsers, and but not our old application.
Users who only want to use the old green-screen, mainframe system.

The result:

Transition guide for experienced users of our old windows application, with
a section on navigating the browser.
On-line help and user manual for the functions the application automates.
Technical reference for system administrators, host (mainframe) system
operations and database administrators.

Different audiences requiring differing kinds of information to perform
different tasks with the same architecture.  Sounds like I'm squarely on the
fence between the Platonian accurists the Murrellian audienciphytes.  Oh
well, I like the view from the fence, it's highly amusing.

Connie Giordano


[snip]

but I
believe the people who make such calls represent a significant portion of
the end user audience.  Yet, companies produce documentation that begins
with the assumption that the audience has a working knowledge of Windows.
It's been my experience that this is often not the case, even for some
technical audiences.