Where is it? Not here…not
down here…not even on this other page…
The missing detail. The one step I need. The how to that wasn't there.
These days you get big
complicated applications with flimsy
little Start Here booklets, if you
are lucky. Hey, you want a complete
manual, go to the bookstore. Or download our PDF, and print it yourself.
But the Dummies books are incomplete. I know, I've written three of them.
The editors never know what the topic is. They just check to make sure you have used
the right styles.
And most of the writers aren't writers. They are engineers moonlighting, beginning
usability gurus, fledgling UI designers—anyone who can afford to write on
weekends. Real writers can barely afford
to write a computer book.
So they get jobs as
technical writers…and leave stuff out of the manual. Why?
Casual. Rushed. Incurious.
No imagination.
No real work on what the users might want to do.
No real exploration of the product itself.
No analysis of the competition.
Hey, who has the time to know what you are talking about?
If you give a damn about your users, put in that extra fact. Bigger manuals are good. Completeness
is a virtue.
And if your content appears online, I don't have to know how many
words you poured out. I only read the
steps you wrote just for me.
Prompts for the tech writer who cares:
·
How does the same feature work in different
circumstances?
·
What are all the goals a user may have in
mind, when coming to this function?
·
What problems
come up, as you try this function out?
·
What actions may have to be spun off into a
separate procedure?
9:39:45 PM 
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