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Subject:RE: Checking Assumptions at the door From:"Damien Braniff" <dbraniff -at- amphion -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Mon, 4 Jun 2001 14:07:36 +0100
In tech writing I hope we don't make too many assumptions (OK we probably do!). When I first started writing a long time a go my mentor told me something that has stuck with me ever since - 'unless you know otherwise, treat your readers as idiots'. While she didn't mean this literally, it did highlight the importance of knowing WHO you're writing for. If we know that then we can target our docs appropriately. At times over the years I have written for 'idiots' (I had no contact whatsoever with the user as products sold third/fourth hand) and, where permitted, I wrote for the lowest level of possible user. Even then it wasn't perfect. The product was an access control system administered via a PC and I later found out that some engineers who were installing/commissioning the system came in for training and didn't know what a mouse was!
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