atw: Re: Statistics to demonstrate value ...
- From: Peter Martin <peterm_5@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:57:05 +1100
Janice Gelb:
You wrote:
> On 19/10/09 01:27 PM, Christine Kent wrote:
>
>> I started following the KISS approach when I realised that no-one but a tech
>> writer
>> gives a pinch of putrescible matter what the document looks like as long as
>> it is
>> readable and serves its purpose. It can use ugly fonts, ugly layout, 27
>> different
>> bullet styles, 38 different margin indentations, spaces to force layout
>> changes,
>> faulty headers and footers, blah blah blah, and no-one but us even sees the
>> mess, let
>> alone cares.
>>
>> To me this is the simple truth, so it doesn't really matter how much value
>> we add or
>> think we add, and it doesn't matter how much it &!$$@$ me off. "They" don't
>> think we
>> add value, and they get what they pay (or don't pay) for.
>>
>>
> Glad you noted that this is the simple truth *to you*. To me, the simple
> truth is that
> while readers will indeed put up with ugly, badly formatted, and inconsistent
> documents, they would prefer nicely formatted, and consistent documents. And
> while they
> will still read documents from other departments that are ugly, badly
> formatted, and
> inconsistent, they're a lot more likely to read a nicely formatted and
> consistent
> document all the way through, comment on it if that's the request, and think
> better of
> the professionalism of the person and department that produced it.
>
Just another thought or two -- along these lines (But beware! this may be a
two-edged sword if your templates don't comply with recommendations)
From time to time it is convenient to point out that badly-formatted documents
bugger customer comprehension.
I always cite the Colin Wheildon research on comprehension which shows that if
you don't know what you're doing with document formatting, comprehension
levels can drop by as much as 60%. That means lost effort, lost dollars, lost
customers.
Of course, it would help if your templates generally use serif fonts for body
type, keep line lengths to reasonable dimensions, (ie, included plenty of white
space) and generally don't have splashy capitals and coloured fonts all over
the place.... :-).
Meanwhile, (or in addition), often Support people can provide assistance here
if they can point to instances where sloppy docs gave them more grief than they
needed, which ruins the company's product image, wastes support time, and
pisses customers off. (One reason why I'm a great believer in tech writers
doing what they can to co-ordinate with Support people, have them reviewing
docs, and listening to what help desk people say about what customers just get
wrong or simply don't read in the docs.)
-PeterM
peterm_5@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
If you are not an idealist by the time you are twenty you have no heart, but if
you are still an idealist by the time you are thirty, you
don't have a head. - Randolph Bourne
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