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I can't answer all your questions, but I can answer this one:
>1. Are users increasingly intimidated as the thickness of the manual
>increases?
It seems that way to me. We are attempting to reduce our
paper documentation. As we do so, it appears that more people
read more of the documentation we do provide.
Of course, I'm talking about 130 pages vs. 40 pages. I'm not sure
it matters as much for documents that are 50-75 pages to begin
with.
Faith Weber
EA Systems Inc.
weber -at- easi -dot- enet -dot- dec -dot- com