RE: How much do people need to be told in documentation?

["Jason Deal" <jason -at- mitratech -dot- com>]

>>John Posada wonders: <<How much do people need to be told in
>>documentation.>>
>>Much less than they used to. When was the last time any of us wrote
"Here's
>>how to use Windows"?
You might be surprised.  We make a database front end for law and insurance
claim offices, and we recently had a user conference (for administrators,
not end users).  The doc team issued a survey to figure out what our
audience was, and 8% of our audience apparently has never used a computer
before sitting down with our software.
Of course, this only merited a disclaimer in the front of our manuals, "If
you do not know how to use Microsoft Windows, please refer to your Microsoft
Windows documentation or consult your system administrator."


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