Re: Task-based versus UI-based documentation

[John G <john -at- garisons -dot- com>]

It's all about the mental gymnastics required to assimilate the complex
vagaries of a software system vs. the physical ability to touch, feel, plug
in, and use a hardware component.

In software you have to do more ground preparation for users as a lot of
what needs explaining requires the user to "get" some concept or behavior.
I have found that's less onerous when documenting hardware.

Software, IMHO, does not really "exist". Sure, it's positive and negative
0s and 1s on a whirling disk, but that's not really existence. What it is
is a series of rules and behaviors - click this or enter that and something
somewhere else changes as a result (and frequently changes in a way that it
not immediately apparent). That's different than physically pushing or
connecting this and you see/feel this happen.

But hey - I was a philosophy major, and I have to say I'm using the same
skills I learned when analyzing Kant's Phenomonology so that I can justify
it all ...

My 2Â,

JG

On Thu, Aug 7, 2014 at 11:16 AM, Lippincott, Richard <RLippincott -at- as-e -dot- com>
wrote:

>
> Hardware writing is pretty much like writing about software, just that it
> hurts more when you drop the actual product on your foot.
>
>

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