RE: Tell them what they need to know and why

["Sarah Bouchier" <Sarah -dot- Bouchier -at- exony -dot- com>]

>If a user knows what they're trying to avoid, they're better equipped
to
>deal with a situation that isn't explicitly addressed in the
documentation
>that might seem to warrant the action you don't want them to do.

I agree completely.

A lot of the time, people are reluctant to call technical support.
Technical support means sitting on hold, followed by explaining their
problem to someone who leads them through a set of triage steps that
don't help, followed by being put through another person, who takes them
through those triage steps again.  They don't want to do that (at least,
I know +I+ don't!), so will try to fix things themselves.

So if someone ends up with a problem, which they suspect they can fix by
doing thing A (for example, 'I've forgotten the cryptographical
passphrase and can't access any of my data; oh, never mind, I'll
reinstall with a new one and see if that does the trick'), if all that's
written is 'if you've forgotten the cryptographical passphrase, stop
installing and call tech support' you can guarantee that they'll decide
that the warning doesn't apply to their unique situation ('Oh, that's
just for green field installs.   This reinstall probably won't work, but
I really need to get to this data, so I have to try') and carry on.

If, on the other hand, the manual says 'If you've forgotten your
cryptographical passphrase (which I +told+ you to keep somewhere secure,
but I figured I was probably talking to myself), continuing the
installation using a new one will break the system +and+ unrecoverably
trash all of your existing data' then, well... let's just say I +hope+
they'll call tech support!

S.
----------------------------------------- 
Sarah Bouchier 
Technical Author 

exony 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

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