Re: Increasing Customer Cont

Subject: Re: Increasing Customer Cont
From: Pat Anderson <panderson -at- ALIAS -dot- COM>
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1993 16:33:38 -0400

Reply to: RE>Increasing Customer Contact
I have had customer contact while working as a tech writer at Alias, and I find
it's really helpful.

It happened at Siggraph for three years in a row. Alias held users group
meetings at Siggraph, and I attended them. Some information came from the
meetings, but most of it was generated in talks I had with the users on an
informal basis after the meeting (when everyone would go grab a beer
somewhere).

My attendance at these meetings involved the Customer Service department, the
organizers of the meeting -- and very few other people.
At that time, Alias felt it was a highly useful thing to do--even though it
wasn't part of a usability program or documentation testing program, it helps
for the writer to be in contact with his/her audience.

Through talking to our users, a plan for documentation design came about. Had I
been working in isolation, I might have taken for granted that our users would
be heavy-duty computer literate with UNIX, or have seen them as computer
hackers who got into computer animation and design, rather than as designers
and animators who were using new tools -- computers.

Through talking to them, I also found out what areas of the software caused
them the most difficulty, and was able to address these problem spots by
providing more tutorials and more information in the reference manual.

What could I offer that other people in the company couldn't? Nobody knew the
manuals like I did! : >

Outside of marketing, not too many people had a user's view of the product. I
was occasionally able to influence the way something would
work.

I can't think of any reasons not to meet with the users--only benefits to the
company. They get good PR (hey, look--this software company's interested in
what we have to say), happy tech writers who really know who their audiences
are, and better documentation (don't forget, documentation is frequently part
of the user's decision on what product to buy if there is more than one).

...pat. anderson |
panders -at- alias -dot- com
tech writer |
Alias Research Inc. | these opinions are
mine, not
| Alias'.


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