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Subject:why and how we write (was: TFM) From:"Swallow, William" <WSwallow -at- courion -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 19 Jul 2001 17:14:34 -0400
[I'm seeing other posts at this moment that decry the narrow, impoverished
definition of "hyperlink" that typical users have. Tough; we write to where
the users *are*, not where we believe they should be.]
I won't argue that point, but that's only part of what we do. We write to
where the users are *and take them to where we believe they should be*. You
might say that we tech writers are links. *vbg* Or at least maybe we're
hyper. ;)
I won't argue that the Acrobat documentation is perfect. It's not, and
that's fairly obvious seeing as we were debating it here. But, the point
wasn't whether it was perfect or not, but whether it explained how to create
a hyperlink, which it did, to a good degree of detail.
Now, to get back onto this somewhat new topic, we write to educate. How do
we do that? Well, we first figure out where the users are (audience
analysis), figure out where we need to take them (product/scope analysis),
and how we need to do it (planning). Then, we do it. (OK, so that's a very
top level analysis.)
I know I had a point around here, but I seem to have lost it (the point,
not... well... maybe my mind too *g*).
Anyhow, writing explicit instructions on how to create a link from a bit of
text to a topic in Acrobat may help on the usability side, but it doesn't
educate the user on the capability of the hyperlink functionality. Some may
argue that is secondary information; I disagree. I think they are both
equally important (usability in design, and thoroughness in presentation).
The question is, how do we do both?
Thoughts?
*****************
BILL SWALLOW
Technical Writer
C O U R I O N C O R P O R A T I O N
1881 Worcester Road
Framingham, Mass. 01701
T E L * 508-879-8400 x316
F A X * 508-879-8500
www.courion.com
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