Re: Tracking off

["Michele Marques" <mmarques -at- cms400 -dot- com>]

Andrew Plato wrote that too much time is spent on audience 
analysis and that you can't write appropriately to one or more 
audiences if you aren't an SME yourself.

While I do agree that too much time can be spent on audience 
analysis, some thought about the likely audience is useful when 
planning the document structure. (And, no, Andrew, I do not mean 
spending a week on planning and a day on writing!) If you know a 
little about the subject matter (as opposed to absolutely nothing), 
you can actually plan a structure without knowing all the details. 
This can then help you get the appropriate details from the SMEs 
(perhaps details they didn't realize you might want).

For example, I recently wrote an installation/upgrade guide for a 
product that is fairly complex to install. I started with no knowledge 
of this process, so I spent my first iteration putting the instructions 
I was given in order. Yes, no audience analysis yet.

Then I thought about the intended audience. While the audience 
should all be qualified system administrators familiar with both the 
O/S and our product, I knew that in reality some people really were 
not familiar with the O/S or our product, while others were experts 
in both. 

I looked over the first draft of instructions and saw a few steps that 
looked like the ideal structure for this situation: bold numbered step 
described in general, followed by an explanation of what would 
occur/should be done, followed by the exact commands and keys 
to press to complete the step. Experts could just read the bold 
numbered steps and know what to do, novices had everything 
explained, and people in the middle of the continuum would read as 
much as they needed of each step.

Note that at this point I did not know all of the information that 
would be filled in. In some of my instructions I was provided with 
the information for the bold numbered step, in a few I was provided 
with the explanation, and in other instructions I was provided with 
the exact commands (but not necessarily the other information).

I could then go back to the SME and ask for the information that I 
required to fill in elements missing from my established structure. 

How much time was spent on audience analysis and planning the 
structure? Maybe 3 hours. I don't think that's too much time 
"wasted" on a guide that took a week or so to write. 


----------------------------------------------
Michele Marques
Technical Writer, CMS Manufacturing Systems
mmarques -at- cms400 -dot- com        
905-477-4499 x280