RE: Tips to improve the user manual

["Sharon Burton" <sharon -at- anthrobytes -dot- com>]

You might start looking at writing a user-centric manual, instead of a
product-centric manual. Think about what the user is doing: What tasks do
they need to accomplish? What are their goals? Why are they doing what they
are doing? What do they need to do 4x a day and what do they do 1x a month,
if ever?

That should lead you to know what fields you need to explain and what you
don't, in the context of telling the user how to do their tasks in the
product.

sharon

Sharon Burton
CEO, Anthrobytes Consulting
951-369-8590
www.anthrobytes.com


-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+sharon=anthrobytes -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+sharon=anthrobytes -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com]On
Behalf Of Annapoorani Gopalan
Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2007 8:48 PM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Tips to improve the user manual


Hai

I am currently writing a user manual for a telecom billing software.
Basically I take screen shots and explain all the fields in the
screen.

I would like to know whether all the fields need to be explained or
should I explain only the mandatory fields. Please suggest.

Also, please give me some tips to improve the user manual.

Regards
Annapoorani

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