Shipping a product with only the online help

["Geoff Hart (by way of \"Eric J. Ray\" <ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com>)" <ght -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

John David Hickey discovered <<To my dismay, my project leader has
decided to try sending out a product with only the online help. No
installation guide, no user's guide. He says he'd like to see how
much the customer's complain when they don't get any documentation.>>

Interesting notion, that. I certainly admire the brass: "let's do
some _real_ audience analysis and hope the company is still here in a
year to benefit from the information". I'm just not sure about the
implementation. While this approach will certainly provide the
desired information, you're likely to really annoy your customers,
even if you think fast on your feet and ship the printed stuff to
anyone who complains, accompanied by a "sorry, we left it out of the
box" letter of apology. Personally, I can't imagine receiving
software without so much as a one-page "to install the software,
double-click on the Install icon then follow the online instructions"
guide. I've been able to figure out most software installs from the
online docs and readme file, but then I'm not a typical user: I've
been geeking for <gasp!> more than 20 years now, and the computer
that intimidates me hasn't been born yet.

One can only hope that the manager's same solicitous attitude towards
your customers doesn't extend to the user interface too.
--Geoff Hart @8^{)}
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

"By God, for a moment there it all made sense!"--Anon.

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