RE: Follow-up to question about getting feedback from users

["Sharon Burton" <sharon -at- anthrobytes -dot- com>]

At the risk of sounding stupid - I seriously don't see the issue, here. 

But I look at a lot of stuff thru a Docs Manager lens. If I could find out
that the bulk of my users *never* use this part of the online help and so
could stop expending resources on it, wouldn't that be good? If we could
find out that people *always* search for help on the X task, then can't that
improve our products? 

In this economic time, you can use this product to make the help better/more
focused/more relevant to the user. You can make the business case for doing
stuff or not doing stuff. It beats the hell out of throwing Docs over the
wall and hoping something gets thrown back. 

It lets you show that people are using the help. Doesn't that go to the core
of proving our worth? I think that discussion has been beaten to death on
the lists lately and this is a way to find out our worth. 

Again, this is not tracking what Joe in Tulsa is doing in the help. It's
about the same level of tracking in any website you visit. 

We spend years of our life trying to find out how to help our users and what
they think of our deliverables. Feedback does that invisibly to the user and
helps you make the User Assistance better. 

How is that bad? What am I missing? It's not a violation of your privacy
because you're never identified. 


sharon

Sharon Burton
MadCap Software Product Consultant
Managing your content, one topic at a time
www.anthrobytes.com
951-369-8590
IM: sharonvburton -at- yahoo -dot- com
Twitter: sharonburton


-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+sharon=anthrobytes -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+sharon=anthrobytes -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of Dan Goldstein
Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2009 12:59 PM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: RE: Follow-up to question about getting feedback from users

If I were considering buying a software product, and I knew that it
included the invisible tracking of Help file usage, I'd first ask if the
tracking could be disabled or blocked.

If it couldn't be disabled, then I certainly wouldn't buy the product!

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sharon Burton
> Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2009 3:42 PM
> To: 'Donna Marino'; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> Subject: RE: Follow-up to question about getting feedback from users
> 
> +++I work part time for MadCap++++
> 
> If you use MadCap's products, they have a product called 
> Feedback that will invisibly track what the users are doing 
> in the help and would answer many of your questions. I think 
> it's one of the most useful products they make.
> 


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help  
2009 tips, tricks, and best practices.
http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/

Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/

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