Re: troubleshooting guide

[Elna Tymes <etymes -at- LTS -dot- COM>]

Nancy McDonald wrote:

> does anyone have some advice
> regarding writing a troubleshooting guide?

Having written some for books and manuals, the most useful
troubleshooting guide I ever did was also in the most arcane symbology -
an old Telco standard that required it all be in flowcharts, using only
four symbols: rectangle for action, diamond for decision box, small
circle for offpage connector, and an oblong whose function I can't now
remember.  The flowchart approach required the user to phrase a
question, then find something similar to the question in the TOC and
look at that page's diagrams.  It was very easy to follow, and I was
told these particular users loved it.

If you look at some of Microsoft's current Help products, you'll find a
similar approach in terms of the questions, but the answers are all in
words. The premise is that you decide what you are trying to do, and
find a question that pretty much asks the same thing.  An alternate
approach is when you have a system with only a limited number of failure
modes, where each kind can be easily identified (a particular
combination of lights flashing, a particular sound, etc.).

Elna Tymes
Los Trancos Systems

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