RE: What is More Important?

["nosnivel -at- netvision -dot- net -dot- il" <nosnivel -at- netvision -dot- net -dot- il>]

Lauren wrote:
> I've been in situations where PMs will say that 
> content doesn't matter because people won't read 
> the document anyway. 

I once worked for a small company that manufactured
an expensive product.  The product had been out in
the field for a few years when my co-writer and I
received a request to add a couple of lines to the
user guide.  I looked at the request and I said,
"If this is true, then by following the instructions
we've been publishing till now, nobody could ever 
succeed in using the product."  My co-writer said, 
"That's right."  A step had been omitted that all 
useful operation depended on and that the user could 
never guess.  We went in consternation to our VP.
He explained that nobody bought the company's product 
without getting long-term on-site handholding from 
our support staff, and our support staff all knew what 
to do without opening the manual.

If I've learned one thing from techwr-l, it's that
circumstances differ from company to company.

------------------------------------------------
  Mark L. Levinson - nosnivel -at- netvision -dot- net -dot- il
------------------------------------------------
Mark discourses to fellow Israeli techwriters in
The Why of Style, at http://www.elephant.org.il/
------------------------------------------------

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