RE: Why I Hate GUI-Centric Docs (Long)

["Barbara Vega" <BarbaraV -at- libertyims -dot- com>]

I couldn't have said it better myself.

When I *have* created ONLY task-based documentation, without fail (and
of course given the nature of the software I was/am writing, which is
complex) some user somewhere says 'Well, we don't know what all these
fields, function buttons, and options DO - so we can't be creative with
ways to do things. If I had known I could have used the widdlybeep on
that dialog to do the same thing, it would have been a lot quicker.
Howcome the Online Assitance doesn't describe all these fields and
function buttons?"

So I have both. I have a Reference Guide section and then I have
"Walkthroughs" for the task-based items. I get feedback from Consulting,
Product Services, and QA as to what tasks they do most often and make
THOSE the Walkthroughs. And then there is the Reference Guide section
for all the bells and whistles.

YMMV according to the type of software you write.

Barbara Vega

 





~Barbara~

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+barbarav=libertyims -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+barbarav=libertyims -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of Mike Starr
Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 8:37 PM
To: Janice Gelb; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Why I Hate GUI-Centric Docs (Long)

The problem as I see it is that whoever created the documentation you
struggled with just plain left out the task-based portion of the
documentation. I'm a firm believer in doing both... task-based
documentation to help the user accomplish the most common tasks and
reference-based documentation (which is what you call GUI-centric
documentation) to help the user understand the nit-picky little details
that never get covered in task-based documentation. I suggest that any
documentation set that provides one without the other is poor
documentation.

Mike
--
Mike Starr                            WriteStarr Information Services

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