Re: Chapter Overviews
I have no statistics. Most textbooks have this feature (and many other
nonfiction books do, as well). Software manuals are closely related to
textbooks.
I don't agree. Textbooks and software manuals are used in very different ways, in very different environments. Even their content is very different.
Textbooks are very heavy on conceptual information. Also included: questions and problems. Software manuals are very heavy on procedural information.
Textbooks are read to understand concepts or to learn information. Software manuals are accessed when a roadblock is encountered using a product.
What I've seen, over and over (and seen reported even more often), is
that people almost universally find out about an application by
exploring it. (It's one thing that makes menus so useful, not that
they are necessarily easy to use, but that they allow exploration of
what an application can do.)
If a person is totally -- and I mean totally -- new to an application, a
good manual will introduce the reader to the product. Sometimes people
buy applications they know nothing at all about, except perhaps that
they've heard of it and decided it can help them achieve some goal. A
good manual can address such a person in the Introduction.
Sorry, but my experience is that even people in situations such as you describe still dive in to the product itself, expecting that the design will enable them to reach their goal. (That this expectation is frequently not met is a reality that is best left for a different discussion.)
And then, for the few who might want to read the manual, front to
back, to find out about the application, why would they reasonably
want to find out about the manual? I mean, that's not why they are
reading the manual, right?
A synopsis is helpful to me, personally, when I look at a textbook. A
scan through the TOC doesn't necessarily put the information into any
kind of context (especially highly technical information that might be
new to me). An Introduction does.
From my own personal experience, when I buy a textbook for a class, I have no choice in the matter. An executive summary is irrelevant because my assignments will be to read the content that the instructor chooses. And when I'm faced with several hundred pages of reading during the course of a quarter or semester, especially if the content is highly technical, you can bet I'm not going to read extraneous stuff that has no relevance to my getting my homework done, learning the material, and getting a decent grade.
--
--
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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