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Matthew Nankin reports: <<I am incorporating my company's corporate tagline
into my documentation. The wording, which originally came from the marketing
department, emphasizes what our software does for the customer and would
ideally be part of a statement at or near the very beginning of the
document. Does anyone have any experience or issues they could share in
incorporating a corporate tagline into technical documentation?>>
No experience, but speaking as a reader, I'll tell you right now that I
wouldn't waste any time reading the tagline. It may not hurt to put it
there, but don't expect it to serve any useful purpose from the audience
perspective.
Quite on the contrary, the tagline may actually do some harm. Anyone who
reads can be expected to evaluate the product and the documentation against
the standards set by the tagline; for example, if you speak about
empowerment and yet the software prevents the user from doing anything
meaningful or fun without a supervisor's permission, your credibility is in
serious jeopardy. Once you've undermined your credibility, you place one
more barrier between the readers and completing their tasks: they approach
your documentation with skepticism or a hostile attitude, both of which
interfere with the ability to just read the darned instructions and do the
work.
On the other hand, if the "mission statement" and "vision" expressed in the
tagline are more than just empty marketing bumpf, you've got a chance to
illustrate those principles through the product and documentation. Use that
opportunity!
--Geoff Hart, geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Que., H9R 3J9 Canada
"Wisdom is one of the few things that look bigger the further away it
is."--Terry Pratchett
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