RE: Simply

["Gordon McLean" <Gordon -dot- McLean -at- GrahamTechnology -dot- com>]

I wonder how many non-technical authors look at the index of the manual of a
potential purchase... Hmmmm

We are ALL part of sales. We all carry a message about our product. But as,
for most of us, product documentation is many many touching points away from
the buyer's initial contact that we can, and should have, filtered out a lot
of the "hooo haaa" stuff. However we do need to say the same things and
reflect the brand. We are part of the product after all.

Gordon 

-----Original Message-----
Subject: Re: Simply

Yes, I agree that online manuals do support sales to the extent that the
prospective buyer comes away with a good impression of the product. I've
done that myself--looked at the index, read an explanation of a concept that
I already understand, read an explanation of a concept that I don't already
understand, read a procedure that I would be likely to use, and so on.

They can also hinder a potential sale by conveying a general air of
crappiness--lots of errors, auto-generated index, incoherent explanations,
poor organisation.

What I doubt has ever happened in the history of the world is that someone
was persuaded to buy a product because the first page of the manual
congratulated them on their purchase, or lauded the product as being simple,
powerful, advanced, popular, user friendly, industry leading, blah blah
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Stuart


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