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Subject:Shipping without the manual, take II From:"Geoff Hart (by way of \"Eric J. Ray\" <ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com>)" <ght -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA> Date:Wed, 21 Oct 1998 10:44:15 -0600
By curious coincidence, I was just reading STC's _Intercom_
newsletter today, and there I find an article by David Heim, a senior
editor at _Consumer Reports_. Heim points out quite nicely that it's
not a lot of use to have an excellent troubleshooting manual on the
product's CD-ROM if you can't boot the computer to read the CD-ROM. I
think the parallel with installation guides is quite clear: shipping
a product intended at least in part for neophytes without including
printed installation instructions is foolish. Heim goes on to note
that producing the documentation that the users need is worth points
when it comes time to rate a product at _Consumer Reports_. I'm sure
other reviewers do the same, since I've seen reviews in PC Magazine
and MacWorld, among other places, that comment on the quality
of the accompanying product documentation. That's worth pondering.
--Geoff Hart @8^{)}
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
"By God, for a moment there it all made sense!"--Anon.
