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Subject:RE: Your opinion, please! (documentation problem) From:MList -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 18 Jun 2003 10:17:13 -0400
Geoff said:
[...]
> Knowledge bases work very well for a particular type of user
> (someone who
> wants to learn by themselves and who is patient enough to
> root through your
> knowledge base). But most users just want to get the job
> done, and can't be
> bothered digging through a knowledge base to find solutions.
> (For evidence,
> check the techwr-l archives for a rough tally of the number
> of people who
> ask questions that could be solved by--say--a trip to the Microsoft
> knowledge base or a search of the techwr-l archives. That's
> not intended as
> a criticism of these people, but rather as a demonstration
> that learning
> styles and problem-solving needs differ.)
It goes deeper than that. In my capacity as professional idiot...
er, I mean technical writer, as well as in my capacity as user
of various software products, it has been repeatedly brought to
my attention that people use different terms to mean the same
thing, and that they string concepts together differently,
depending on their history and their entry to the field.
One of my most frequent/reliable experiences when trying to
learn new systems is that I'm invariably trying to look up something
using the words and a slant that *I* use for the concepts, and they
are not the words or the approach that the creators or documentors
(or FAQ writers, or How-To writers) used.
That happens when I search the Techwrl archives for threads in
which I did not originally have a part. I don't find what I'm
looking for, not because it isn't there, but because I'm not
talking about it, or approaching it from the same direction,
as those who held the discussion, solved the problem, and moved
on. Sometimes it's not even the terminology, so much as that
I'm concentrating on a different symptom, because it's the one
that affected me first, whereas other people were more concerned
about a different symptom/aspect of the same problem. The underlying
cause and solution are the same, but the emphasis and terms are
different.
Perhaps my most frequent whine is: "I'm *sure* I remember a
thread about exactly this, a few months ago... but what in hell
did they CALL it!!??" What's really bad is that many mailing
lists keep their archives in monthly blocks. You can't search
past a monthly boundary. So you need to do the same (incorrect)
search a couple of dozen times before you get the idea that
you aren't merely trying the wrong months/year, you are trying the
wrong search terms. Joy.
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