Field-specific Help

[Ned Bedinger]

l m wrote:
>
> Do I really have to write, "In the Name field, enter your name."???
 > I will also be providing the system requirements, such as # of
> characters, whether symbols are allowed, etc. but for the field 
 > definitions this just seems a little silly. Anyone out there succeed
 > in making the "Name" (or "Address" or "Phone Number") field seem
 > much more interesting in their documentation, or do you all just
 > leave it to stand on its own?

You've gotten good advice about a range of considerations, and in 
contrast I think mine will sound like I think tech writers needs to be 
tyrannized by robot masters chanting "Must conform to universal 
practices."  But here it is: I think that all fields should be 
documented with the same degree of detail. I say this because, if you'll 
pardon my assumption, the data is presumably going to a database, and 
you don't want to be the one who missed documenting any of the data 
rules that apply to the user's data entry.  Your software people may 
have missed a few, and your database people might have done so too, but 
you don't wanna do that.

You mentioned some existing field restrictions and requirements, so 
you've probably done this already, but if not, you could track down the 
database people and review each field thoroughly for restrictions and 
special requirements. Take along some examples (Char and Andrew provided 
some good ones!) of exceptions to the seemingly obvious rules for names 
and addresses, and let your data people know you're pitching in with 
critical thinking.

Ned Bedinger
doc at edwordsmith.com