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Subject:Re: Who reads the manuals? From:Fred Wersan <wersan -at- ZEUS -dot- MA30 -dot- BULL -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 17 Mar 1994 13:02:21 EST
One of my former co-workers stopped by the office a little while ago. He
recently interviewed at a company with a new software product. They wanted
two manuals and two help files for this product and wanted to start shipping
in one month.
As long as the people who run software companies think they can save documen-
tation to the last minute we will continue to have poor manuals and frustrated
customers (oops almost said users).
---------------------------(different train of thought starts here)------
One thing that works against larger companies putting out breezier types of
manuals is the need to keep some consistency of style across a document set.
The aftermarket books don`t have this problem.
It can also be tough to be breezy about a system software manual, or the DCE
application I`m documenting right now. Though I try to lighten up in the
tutorial.
-----------------------------------
Fred Wersan
Quest Engineering Solutions
Documentation Services
MA30/807
300 Concord Rd.
Billerica, Mass. 01821
508-294-2322
f -dot- wersan -at- bull -dot- com
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