atw: Re: Guides and manuals [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

Howard asks about "user guide" and "user manual", and Michael Granat suggests
"operator" rather than "user".

Way back when I first got involved with technical communication, PCs hadn't
been invented, and the term "user" was too vague and general. The models that
tech writers used in those days covered about ten types of user for mainframe
software products -- decision makers, installers, maintainers, performance
tuners, operators, application developers, and "end users", as well as a
couple of others that I can't recall.

More accurately, these were indicative of "task categories"; any given person
might perform any combination of them, but they would only do one at a time.
So we had a basis for task analysis, which was (and is) a prerequisite for
info needs analysis.

The problem in the micro-computer environment is that such clear "task
category" boundaries don't always exist. Some software products are only sold
into the corporate market where you can safely assume a distinction between
system administrators and end users, but a lot of products find a far broader
market; the end user sometimes chooses the software, installs it, uses it,
maintains it, and above all gets annoyed by it. What does such a user need to
know?

Think (if you can bear it) of MS Wurd. Everyone needs to know a lot of stuff;
especially, people need to know about things they will never use, because so
many features have default settings that mean you have to know how to turn
them off . . .


Michael Lewis

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Brandle Pty Limited, Sydney, Australia
www.brandle.com.au
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