Re: What audience should I target?

["Chris Christner" <cchris -at- toptechwriter -dot- us>]

Hi Yevgeny,

If the company has sold similar products, talk to the reps in tech support
to see how those docs fared. Ask them if there are common complaints that
the manuals are too technical or too skimpy on details (usually it's one
or the other and it indicates they were written for the wrong audience) or
whether customers say the manuals don't reflect the way they're using the
products (which means the company's SMEs didn't grok what the real-world
applications of the products would be). Knowing that these problems
occurred in the past will prepare you to ask the right questions of SMEs
on your project.

Chris
___________________________________________
TopTechWriter.US
http://www.toptechwriter.us
Award-winning technical writing and illustration services.



Yevgeny wrote:

> My customer (a big international company) doesn't tell me anything about =
> the intended audience of the hardware and software user documentation I =
> am writing. All I get is a specification and a few other supplementary =
> documents (data sheets and the like).

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