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Re: How much do people need to be told in documentation.
Subject:Re: How much do people need to be told in documentation. From:"Tracy Boyington" <tracy_boyington -at- okcareertech -dot- org> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Mon, 17 Sep 2001 09:47:59 -0500
<<"Do you really think that with people knowing what they know, that we
need to use a full paragraph explaining to them what an email address
looks like? As most people know by now, I usualy assume very little
in a document, but I think explaining that an email address contains
an @ sign, a period after the @ sign, etc. may be overkill." >>
Who is your audience? I still see reminders to AOL users that they need to add "@aol.com" after their "screen name" when giving their email address, so it could still be an issue.
<< "You want me to give multiple ways of copying and pasting. My opinion
is that we give them one (CTRL-C and CTRL-V). This way we know they
CAN do it. If they know of other ways, then they'll use them anyway. >>
Again, I think this depends on your audience. IME, using keystrokes to copy and paste is more common with advanced users than with beginners or even intermediate users. So I think it's more likely that people who only know one way to c&p will be familiar and comfortable with the menu selection method, not the keyboard method. But that's just my experience; YMMV.
~~~~~
Tracy Boyington tracy_boyington -at- okcareertech -dot- org
Oklahoma Department of Career & Technology Education
Stillwater, OK http://www.okcareertech.org/cimc
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