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Subject:RE: The Burden of Screen Captures From:John Posada <JPosada -at- book -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Fri, 22 Nov 2002 15:45:03 -0500
Maybe I missed something in the original post or maybe I filtered it through
my preferences....
In my documentation, I have two types of explanations...procedure sections
and design sections.
In the procedure sections, I take the users to a result through a process
step by step.....How to Properly Shut Down a Server. The procedure section
may be how to properly shut down a server. OTOH, I have, in the design
section, and explanation of the server with no procedure instructions. If
someone, while performing the task needs to know where something is, maybe
where a config file is on the subdirectory structure, they can go to the
design section, see what they need, then continue with the procedure
In the design, I have pictures and menus, and I explain what the elements of
the pictures and menus are. In the procedure section, I also have pictures,
but the pictures show the end result of a series of tasks. There may be 20
tasks in the procedure and when done, the dialog is supposed to look a
certain way...certain things with checkmarks, radio buttons, paths in text
fields, etc.
The knack is to know when to apply which. I think what reacted to was that
it seemed that it was a blanket statement stating that there was no place
for sections just describing what was on the menu and that everything needed
to be task oriented.
John Posada
Senior Technical Writer
Barnes&Noble.com
jposada -at- book -dot- com
212-414-6656
"Available for next gig Feb 01, 2003"
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike O. [mailto:obie1121 -at- yahoo -dot- com]
Sent: Friday, November 22, 2002 3:20 PM
To: John Posada; TECHWR-L
Subject: RE: The Burden of Screen Captures
> darn...I must have missed that announcement. Was it in the
> "newsletter?"
Prominently featured in many newsletters and on this list...
...
I definitely remember interviewers grilling me about whether I
used a task-oriented approach. They were trying to weed out the
people who used the menu-driven approach.
--- John Posada <JPosada -at- book -dot- com> wrote:
> >>menus and dialog boxes? My impression is that this technique
> is
> >>was generally replaced by the task-oriented procedural
> approach
> >>sometime in the mid-1990s. I don't know your app, so I could
> be
>
> darn...I must have missed that announcement. Was it in the
> "newsletter?"
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