RE: This too is technical communication

Subject: RE: This too is technical communication
From: "Combs, Richard" <richard -dot- combs -at- Polycom -dot- com>
To: <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2007 08:21:06 -0600

Stuart Burnfield wrote:

> If you're pretending to be a clueless idiot, it's hard to
> avoid overwriting and overexplaining. You'll be tailoring the
> docs to make them more usable by a handful of users, at the
> expense of the overwhelming majority of users. (I'm assuming
> you haven't identified clueless idiots as a significant
> segment of your target audience :^)

Hear, hear. Mark Baker, who I believe was a regular contributer to this
list (or was it FrameUsers?) a while back, posited "Baker's Paradox,"
which I formatted nicely with a border and big letters, and posted
prominently in my cube as a reminder:

"Any procedure that anticipates every possible misunderstanding will be
incomprehensible to all users."

Richard


------
Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
------
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-777-0436
------







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References:
Re: This too is technical communication: From: Stuart Burnfield

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