Re: Humor as a communication technique -Reply

[Lisa Higgins <lisarea -at- LUCENT -dot- COM>]

Lisa Comeau wrote:

> but only because she refers to 'angry docs', and I believe that
 this is the type of documentation we want to aviod
 anyway. To me, the term 'angry docs' refers to those
"non-user-friendly" docs we di>

No, no, no. The documents themselves are not 'angry.' I'm talking
about the sort of stuff where the users are likely to be angry and
impatient. This includes stuff like help files and, in many cases,
user manuals. You do need to know your audience, and if your audience
only turns to certain documents when they've tried everything else,
you MUST write as though the users are in a hurry.

It's all well and good if you want to put the cute stuff or the
background information in another place, but if I, as a user, am
trying to complete some task and I can't figure out how to do it, the
first and only thing I want to see when I click that help button or
open that manual is the procedure for doing what I want to do. It is
our job to try to predict not only our users' disposition and reasons
for looking at the documentation; but what information they're
looking for.

> Just another case of "Know Your Audience".

Absolutely. And *if you are reasonably perceptive*, training is an
ideal situation in which to introduce some humor. I still would not
recommend it to everyone. I've seen too many ugly things, like the
'professional motivational speaker' (ick!) who blithely made joke
after joke about the short, balding man who chuckled politely, or the
CEO who made a joke about two employees with limps in a three-legged
race. (Oh ho! It is funny how W. almost DIED after falling twenty
stories! HO HO HO!!!)

I'm not directing this at anyone, but I cringe at the idea of
advising people to use humor, as there are plenty of people who are
incapable of doing so.

Lisa Higgins
lisarea -at- lucent -dot- com