Re: The Perfect Productivity Metric

["Lyn Worthen" <lynw -at- attglobal -dot- net>]

We once had a customer e-mail us, wanting their money back for the manual
they'd purchased from us, because "nowhere did it discuss xxx or how to set
it up."  My boss was very annoyed with me for missing such an important
feature in the user manual.

I went to the manual, sure that I'd covered the feature adequately and
referenced it appropriately, and returned to him within ten minutes with:
 - the TOC entries for the chapter devoted to the feature
 - the index entries for the feature (several specific references)
 - the specific page numbers (a range of seven or eight pages and a glossary
entry, as I recall) discussing the feature in both conceptual terms and how
to set it up and implement it.

My boss e-mailed the information to the customer, along with an apology for
his dissatisfaction and an offer to refund his money.  Needless to say, we
never heard another word from the customer.

Sometimes it's -not- our fault.
But that still doesn't make the user a moron.
Just in too much of a hurry to really look at the manual he'd purchased.

L

----- Original Message -----
From: "Philip Sharman" <psharman -at- verity -dot- com>
> At 08:26 AM 00/07/11 -0500, someone wrote:
> >  I regularly get bugs that state that the documentation is
> >lacking X. Well, X just happens to be in the guide.
>
> When that happens to me I start to wonder if my manual _is_ at fault.
> Maybe the item needs to be indexed better, mentioned more prominently,
> cross-referenced to from other places, or reworded, etc. Or maybe there's
> too much superficial fluff getting in the way.