Re: Documentation not as important anymore?

[Lori Lathrop <76620 -dot- 456 -at- COMPUSERVE -dot- COM>]

I'm interested in this thread because I have some theories of my own.
What customers really want is a way to obtain the information they want
*quickly* so they can get on with their tasks.  If they can't find the
information in the product documentation, their next step is to call a
Hot Line or Customer Support.  By that time, they are not happy campers.
In other words, customer satisfaction is at an all-time low.

Most of you (or, at least, those of you who have read my previous posts
on indexing) have probably already guessed where I'm heading, and you're
right.  An index is *the* most important retrievability tool a document
can have.  There's nothing more frustrating to users than knowing that the
information "is in the document somewhere" and not being able to find it.
(The only thing that annoys me more is finding an index entry that looks
interesting, turning to the referenced page to learn more, and then
discovering that the index had led me to a dead end because the page
reference was incorrect.)

My point is this:  If the product documentation has a comprehensive index
that points readers to every useful nugget of information, users would not
have to call Hot Lines or Customer Service so often.  I read an article a
few years ago (sorry, I can't remember where) that said that most of the
information users requested from Customer Support personnel was actually
*in* the documentation; however, the users couldn't find it because the
index was inadequate.

Lori Lathrop (getting off soapbox)
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