atw: Re: The user guide from hell [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
- From: Peter.Martin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2012 17:20:19 +1100
Warren:
So why are you getting rid of Microsoft Word ? -- Sorry... guess the
answer's plain enough.
Peter G Martin
Contract Technical writer
Business Change and Communication Team
Business Information and Management Solutions Group
IP Australia
P + 61 2 6283 2972 ? F + 61 2 6283 7999 ? E
peter.martin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
A 47 Bowes Street, Woden ACT 2606 ? PO Box 200, Woden ACT Australia
2606
Visit us at http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au
P Please consider the environment before printing this email
From: LEWINGTON Warren <Warren.LEWINGTON@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 02/03/2012 02:27 PM
Subject: atw: Re: The user guide from hell
Sent by: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Just today I have been removing software from this computer.
On a couple of occasions the software documentation tells you a great deal
of very useful, accurate, worthy user information, installation, latest
features etc, etc, etc.
But for the life of me, I couldn't find out exactly what the software was
for...
Still wondering, even after removal.
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [
mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Michael Lewis
Sent: Friday, 2 March 2012 1:37 PM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Re: The user guide from hell
There's no denying that many "bad" user manuals are caused by poor product
design; some people seem to think that bad design can be fixed by good
documentation, whereas in fact bad design virtually guarantees bad
documentation. That said, good design certainly doesn't guarantee good
documentation . . .
Michael Lewis
Department of Linguistics
Macquarie University
On 2 March 2012 09:32, Kath Bowman <Kath.Bowman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The worst user manual I came across was for a digital video recorder. All
through the instructions, it kept telling me what to do if things did not
work as expected. It was hard going, and each task took several pages to
describe. It was full of ?If this happens?? followed by ?If that
happens?? There were no simple steps to follow to do a task. I didn?t
encounter any of the problems they described. They should have used simple
step-based procedures, followed by trouble-shooting sections.
However, the recorder was as badly designed as the manual, and I got rid
of the recorder (and the manual) after a while.
Cheers
Kath
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