Who's yer audience now, Bucko?

[Kevin McLauchlan <KMcLauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com>]

Paul Moloney's little question about Outlook 98 
(recent "upgrade" from '97) caused the ole 
lightbulb to glow, illuminating this thought that 
has been rattling around my mental rafters.

Who's the audience for a printed software manual?

Hmm.  Let's narrow that question a smidgen...
Who's the audience for a manual that comes 
in the box with a piece of PC software like, 
oh, say, Office 98... or CorelDRAW!, or a 
source-code version-control program.
Some guy, or some woman, sitting at a desk, 
staring at a PC monitor and hoping to get 
some real work done, yes?

Well, "Duh!" you say.

Hold on.  That picture looks pretty clear, 
but it's not. WHO is that person? What is 
the work they want to do?

Oh, you thought it was somebody in the cube 
farm, trying to do figures, write code, write 
reports, update the web-site, plan the project,
process the accounts-payable, etc., etc....?

Nope.  It *might* be a lonely SOHO worker, with 
between zero and twenty cow-orkers, who's in 
that position, but it definitely ain't anyone 
in the legions of corporate cube-farms.  Uh uh.
Don't believe me?  Walk into any modern corporate 
office with more than 30 or 40 employees. Walk 
up to any desk and jiggle the mouse (yeah, they 
DO tend to forget to lock the workstation when they 
go for coffee, don't they?) -- up pops a half-acre 
of familiar icons. Lessee, this one has two well-
known browsers, one well-known integrated office 
package, a well-known drawing/stencilling program, 
and the client front-end of an ERP system. The 
next twenty-seven cubicles you visit will be 
similarly accoutered.  It's all legitimate, bought 
and paid for.  Where are your beloved manuals?

Oh.  Well, if you walk down this hall, turn left 
past the printer station and go through that door, 
you'll be in IS/IT-land. The first person you see 
has a screw-driver in her back pocket, a static-strap 
on her wrist, and is surrounded by several PCs in 
various stages of (dis)assembly. "Manuals?" she says, 
indicating another door, "Ask at the Help Desk. 
They've got some, I think."

Oh hell, you got here ahead of me?  Well for the 
slower ones who haven't caught up (  :-)  ) there 
are over four hundred software licenses in use at 
this little company, among the sixty employees, and only 
three people have ever seen the manuals. Exactly 
two copies of each book and associated CDs and 
diskettes came into the place.  The rest were all 
just licence/seat updates. The book was opened for 
half an hour the first time the system-setup wallah 
had to install and configure this particular program. 
Maybe.
Then it went on a shelf. Not even the help-desk 
phone people ever reach for the books.  They were all 
sent on courses for the programs, and learned the 
rest on the job.

Most of the people out in the cube farms have never 
seen the software manuals and never will, even though 
they use the programs every day.  One or two might 
wander down to IS/IT to borrow a book, but the third 
visitor will find that the books never came back from 
loan.

Anybody in the cube farm who DOES have a book for 
the software is using something from QUE or O'Reilly, 
or something that says "For Dummies" on the cover.

Yer average business software user gets a hurried 
intro from a (sorta) knowledgeable cow-orker and 
then makes-do with native intelligence (don't smirk), 
online help (unless it's FrameMaker ... ok, smirk), 
and the occasional call to the IS/IT Help Desk. The 
odd clump of workers gets sent on a course and becomes 
the defacto core of the (sorta) knowledgeable cow-orkers 
mentioned above.  If the missing/borrowed copies of 
your beloved software manual (on which you worked so 
hard) are ever found, they'll be dusty and have old 
coffee mugs welded to their covers.  A forensic exam 
would likely reveal interior pages completely free 
of smudges and fingerprints.

Now, there's still a market for your books out in 
the land of the free-lancer and the worker in an 
office that's too small for an IS dept., and that's 
only because they buy software in singles, so the 
books come with.  If you really want your manual 
to be read (if only in part, and then only grudgingly), 
then write docs for developers. 
They still need to look things up. Sometimes.

There.  Hope I lifted everybody's spirits.

Disclaimer:  The above is only my experience and 
observation, and could possibly be inaccurate, but 
I doubt it.

Ok, I'll close the door behind me.  Resume coffee break.


Kevin McLauchlan
kmclauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com