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Re: Documenting the user interface

Subject: Re: Documenting the user interface
From: "Mike Starr" <mike -at- writestarr -dot- com>
To: <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 08:26:00 -0600

Procedural documentation is absolutely essential... we need to help the user accomplish the tasks they bought the product to do.

However, to leave users twisting in the wind, resorting to "exploring and learning", because there is no reference documentation is unconscionable. Every button, checkbox, radio button, drop-down list box, etc. in a user interface needs to be explained somewhere in the documentation set. Not only that but it must be easy for the user to find that explanation when he/she needs it.

Mike
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Combs, Richard" <richard -dot- combs -at- Polycom -dot- com>
Subject: RE: Documenting the user interface
Janice Gelb wrote:

Not sure I agree that "users will wonder" why things exist in
the user interface. I think most users buy a product to
accomplish some task and with very few exceptions, their
interest in the interface is solely related to how to use
it to accomplish that task. That's why I agree that you
don't need to describe every button, tab, field, etc. They
should only be described in the tasks in which they are
used to accomplish something.

I'll go further -- in some cases, you don't even have to exhaustively describe everything they use to accomplish something. I'd argue that if "users will wonder," that's not necessarily a bad thing. It can be a very good thing to encourage exploration and learning.

Richard
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