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Re: PC World RTFM

Subject: Re: PC World RTFM
From: Peter Neilson <neilson -at- alltel -dot- net>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2003 18:22:14 -0500


On Tue, 09 Dec 2003 13:56:56 -0800, Guy K. Haas <guy -at- hiskeyboard -dot- com> wrote:

Rick Bishop wrote:
[success with] slick little 40 pg shirt pocket sized manual ...

Back in the good old days [made a fat IBM-card sized] "pocket guide" ...

On a customer visit [learned that the] pocket guide kept getting lost on their desks.

Guy, perhaps the pocket guide was too big for a pocket? That's where they should
have been keeping it. Sometimes several pocket guides are appropriate, tailored
to the needs of each kind of user. When I worked at Teradyne in the early '70s,
the one-man tech writing department (not me) went out and measured men's shirt
pockets at a famous Boston clothier's shop to make sure the pocket guides were
the right size. They were very popular. A decade later I was a tech writer at
Prime Computer, and the person designing the pocket guides justified the chosen
size by referring to the work a friend of his had done at Teradyne! Again, the
pocket guides were popular. Anyone who sent in one of the evaluation forms in the
back of a big manual received a free pocket guide.

Or perhaps all the geeks who might use today's pocket guides are wearing T-shirts
with no pockets at all? Maybe all docs should be distributed on a read-only PDA,
complete with carrying case and belt clip. Oops, some users don't wear belts.
Darn!

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References:
RE: PC World RTFM: From: Rick Bishop
Re: PC World RTFM: From: Guy K. Haas

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