Re: PC World RTFM

Subject: Re: PC World RTFM
From: "Chuck Martin" <cm -at- writeforyou -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 11:00:57 -0800



"Peter Neilson" <neilson -at- alltel -dot- net> wrote in message
news:222142 -at- techwr-l -dot- -dot- -dot-
> On Tue, 09 Dec 2003 13:56:56 -0800, Guy K. Haas <guy -at- hiskeyboard -dot- com>
wrote:
> > Rick Bishop wrote:
> >> [success with] slick little 40 pg shirt pocket sized manual ...
> > Back in the good old days [made a fat IBM-card sized] "pocket guide" ...
> > On a customer visit [learned that the] pocket guide kept getting lost on
their desks.
>
> Guy, perhaps the pocket guide was too big for a pocket? That's where they
should
> have been keeping it. Sometimes several pocket guides are appropriate,
tailored
> to the needs of each kind of user. When I worked at Teradyne in the early
'70s,
> the one-man tech writing department (not me) went out and measured men's
shirt
> pockets at a famous Boston clothier's shop to make sure the pocket guides
were
> the right size. They were very popular. A decade later I was a tech
writer at
> Prime Computer, and the person designing the pocket guides justified the
chosen
> size by referring to the work a friend of his had done at Teradyne!
Again, the
> pocket guides were popular. Anyone who sent in one of the evaluation
forms in the
> back of a big manual received a free pocket guide.

That's exactly what the inventer of the Palm (originally Pilot, then Palm
Pilot, until the lawyers at Pilot Pen got their panties in a bunch) did: he
carved out blocks of wood and carried them around with him, in his pocket,
mimicking the actions he might do with a device that size. He actually
pretended to press buttons and write on a "screen" to see how different
sizes and shapes worked both in the pockets and in actual use.

This, instead of how most products are designed: by marketing and sales to
win the bullet-point competition.

>
> Or perhaps all the geeks who might use today's pocket guides are wearing
T-shirts
> with no pockets at all? Maybe all docs should be distributed on a
read-only PDA,
> complete with carrying case and belt clip. Oops, some users don't wear
belts.
> Darn!
>
We find ways to carry around our necesary toys. :)


--
--
Chuck Martin
User Assistance & Experience Engineer
twriter "at" sonic "dot" net www.writeforyou.com

"I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. The day
may come when the courage of Men fail, when we forsake our friends and break
all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day! This day, we fight!"
- Aragorn

"All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given you."
- Gandalf



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References:
RE: PC World RTFM: From: Rick Bishop
Re: PC World RTFM: From: Guy K. Haas

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